Spartan Ruby B-312 Noble six
by lrdchief
Summary: Inspired by Ruby B-312 by GreenTheRyno Ruby gets whisked away from remnant at a young age, in lists in the Spartan III program, what happens when she is reunited with her home world after the universe presumes her dead? Cover art by Foxtail
1. Prologue

Ruby Rose had ran away, grief stricken by the death of her mother at 4 years old she had refused to accept it, and ran, not caring where her feet took her. She had just had her aura unlocked by her older sister, after begging for her to do so since she began training at signal, and wanted to show it off to Summer Rose, when the letter came you the Rose/Xiao Long household, stating that a huntsman had found the mawed corpse of the bright and cheerful huntress.

She panted as tears streamed down her face as she ran further into the woods where her late mother had last been seen,

"Mommy!" she cried out in vein, "Mommy! I'm here you can come out now!" No cheerful chuckle graced the young girl as her footfalls were the only sound to be heard. Instead a faint whirring was heard by the little girl in the red dress. A floating metallic orb, with a blue light for an eye appeared in front of the girl,

"A Reclaimer?" it said, causing the small girl to stop in her tracks and stare up in curiosity. "There shouldn't be any Remclaimers here, the shield world upgrade project was canceled shortly after Requium's completion, you must be returned to a Reclaimer planet at once." The orb decided, as Ruby sniffled,

"Are you going to take me to Mommy?" she asked, blissfully naïve to the orb's origin, "Yes, follow me," it 'nodded' before floating off.

Spartan Ruby B-312 woke with a start, that dream following her around for as long as she could remember, she banged her head back against the concrete wall of the bunker she had managed to find. The Pillar of Autumn had left about 12 hours ago, and Noble 6 was scouting a way off the planet, after narrowly avoiding death from a group of Elite Zealots she had picked up her broken helmet, even if the visor was cracked, it provided better protection against plasma blasts, and found shelter.

If the sounds from above were anything to go by, the Covenant were still searching for her, not wanting to let a 'demon' go the chance of being left alive. She sighed as she stood up, and put on her helmet again. Her black and maroon highlighted MJOLNIR armor , blending in with the shadows. She used that to her advantage as she snuck by the Covenant troops, seemingly wandering the deserted planet aimlessly.

After what seemed like hours of evading enemy squadrons, hijacking vehicles and driving with the same lack of purpose, Spartan B-312 found herself in front of a structure, the like of which she had only seen once before, and that was 30 km underground, frozen in glacial ice underneath SWORDBASE. Its sleek, silvery metal with blue highlights intrigued the Spartan. It reminded her of somethings she had thought had just been a dream, but now that she saw a similar structure, it was beginning to feel like a memory.

"Ah, Reclaimer!" a robotic voice announced behind the hyper-lethal vector, as she spun round to face her assailant, her DMR at the ready.

The voice's owner was a silver orb, made seemingly of the same material as the structure, with a large blue dot in the center, making it look like some weird eyeball,

"I am 413-Sovereign Martyr, monitor of this shield world installation, At least I was until The Didact got corrupted with the Logic Plague, then the shield world upgrade was canceled half complete." The orb chuckled before floating around Noble 6,

"It appears your combat skin is damaged, and out of date, I can upgrade it if you like, along with body augmentations that will help you withstand the flood, though I must say, your weapons would be terribly ineffective."

Ruby still held the DMR up to the mysterious construct. Even if it seemed to have no apparent threat,

"I assure you I mean no harm Reclaimer, I am simply suggesting that we get to a safer location so I can do what is necessary." Sovereign Martyr stated, as she lowered her weapon.

"Your who I saw all those years ago." She realized, "The one who teleported me from my Home world."

"I can assure you that was not me Reclaimer, I have not met one of your kind in approximately 100,000 of your measurement of years. Shall we go?" he asked in a joyous tone.

"Yes…" came the nervous reply, before they were teleported inside.

Ruby tensed up at the sudden action as she assessed her new surroundings, she was in a large room with a high ceiling, too high to make out in fact, with various consoles and panels lining the walls. In the center was a table looking very much like an operating table,

"Please remove your combat skin, and I will have it set to be repaired, and upgraded, do you have any special requests regarding it's upgrades?" Martyr questioned, as Ruby looked up at the forerunner AI in disbelief,

"It takes about 5 hours to get out of it on my own." Was all she said.

"Ah I see your predicament, one moment." He flew off to a wall before seemingly doing something to a holographic interface, and a disassembly ark appeared from the floor, "I scanned your black box data earlier and I believe this is what's required to remove the armor correct?"

She nodded nervously as she stood into the arc, and in about 5 minutes, was out of her armor, and in nothing but the skin tight undersuit, which still provided some protection. The monitor then floated over, "I have devised a series of augmentations I believe should enhance your abilities to the max they can safely be, would you like to undergo them while I am having your combat skin repaired?" she nodded slightly in affirmation, and 413 flew over to the table in the center of the room, "Lay down here please and we will get started."

Doing as the orb instructed, Noble 6 lay down on the table and then various tools and needle-like appendages on long arms stretch up above came down and hovered about a few feet above and to the side of Ruby's figure on the table.

"I assume you want to be unconscious for this process?" Martyr asked,

"Yeah, I think that would be best." Came the reply, and a small arm came down and injected anesthesia into Spartan B-312's bloodstream. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the needles and various other devices on the arms slowly coming towards her.

Ruby woke from her dreamless sleep after the augmentation process with no-one else in the room, but her armor was sitting in a stand to the side of the table. She got up, wobbling a bit, it seems the augmentations increased her height yet again, gauging the surroundings around her with herself, she estimated that as she was she was now about 7'2" as opposed to the 6'7" before them, almost as tall as Jorge, she reminisced, reaching into the pockets of her armor to make sure they were still there, pulling out 4 chains, one with JORGE-052, another. CATHERINE B-320, the third, CARTER A-259, that one blackened slightly, and lastly, EMILE A-239, stamped on the metal plates. She had collected Emile's tag after disposing of the Covenant carrier. He fought valiantly, and, had personally been Ruby's favourite member of Noble Team. The only one who seemed to want to end the Covenant more than she did. And Carter's were found during her time wandering, somehow surviving the glassing.

As she got used to her new body, wandering around the room, she thought what Martyr had said, he hadn't seen a human in over a hundred thousand years, there was an enemy called the flood, and Reach had been planned to be a shield world, whatever that was, before the Didact, who she presumed was an important figure, got infected with some form of disease called 'the logic plague,' it sounded like a virus for AI, perhaps the Didact was a powerful AI for this ancient race?

She looked at the armor on the stand. The Operator CNM helm with a silver visor, UA/MultI threat left shoulder pad, and ODST on the right, UA/Couterassault chest plate, Tactical trauma kit on the thigh, a Tac pad on the wrist, and FJ/Para kneepads, all fully customised by herself to suit her needs as a Spartan III, the black colour with maroon highlights standing out in the white and blue of the room around her. It had been scaled up to fit her new frame, and now stood, arms slightly outstretched above the sides, waiting for it to be put on.

"Ah you're finally awake Reclaimer," came Martyr's voice as the orb floated down from the ceiling, "I trust that the combat skin has retained enough of its original design?" he questioned.

"Yeah, I think it has, could you run over the upgrades you gave it?" she asked, and if the eye-like orb could have visible emotions, one could only describe its motions as physical excitement, as he launched into his explication.

"Oh most certainly! your original set had much heavier steel and titanium alloy plating, where as this has a new blend of superlight, durable metals that not only has increased its overall strength, but flexibility has increased, with weight significantly reduced. The energy shield batteries were terribly inefficient, seeing as they were nuclear, so they have also been upgraded, allowing the amplification of your energy shielding by approximately 250%, your under-skin was also botched together in a most barbaric manner, if you can describe synthetic materials that way, so has been made more durable, tear resistant and flexible than its predecessor."

(A/N Re Edit: closer to Gen III armor, but with Forerunner power sources.)

Ruby was trying not to fangirl over the upgrades, she had always been interested in these things, armor and weapons. One of her Quirks, but she was a Spartan and couldn't let it show and so she held her composure as she continued questioning the monitor.

"How much does it weigh now?"

"According to the weight scale of the schematics of the previous one, to now weighs precisely 158.95 Kilograms," was Martyr's response.

Wow, ok, that was a lot lighter as opposed to the 226.8kg it was before, she felt as if she's gonna be able to run alot faster, oh she couldn't wait to try her rose boost with it.

"Please understand Reclaimer, your specifications made it so that I could only upgrade it this far, it still only marks as a rank 4 combat skin, if you allowed me to alter the physical design, I would be able to upgrade it to a rank 9 combat skin, even with the limited resources I have here." 413 spoke then, as Spartan B-312 looked at him in surprise,

"You mean to say, this is still weaker than what you can make?"

"Yes, Reclaimer,"

"And you could make it better, if you altered the look of it?"

"why of course, would you like me to?"

"No, it's just, man, I thought Halsey was exaggerating about this whole past civilisation stuff, but thy must have been pretty strong then." The monitor looked crestfallen at the denial to upgrade to a better combat skin, but perked up at the question that Ruby then asked him,

"Tell me, you said about the flood, earlier, what do you mean by 'the flood?'

"Oh that was just me rambling Reclaimer, after checking the database, I found that the flood are all but extinct, so there is nothing to worry about." He brushed off the question, without a moment's thought.

"Uh huh..." Ruby looked at her armor again, "Shall we put it on?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, I knew I hadn't mentioned something, you no longer need that primitive machinery to put it on, just tap the screen on the arm there."

She walked up to it, and tapped on the screen as she was asked, the armor seemingly vanished until the Tac pad was the only thing left, on a wrap that could be put on the arm. "It now can be called and sent away by that interface, which sends it to a small pocket dimension, which you will also find every weapon that was in your black box data, with plenty of ammunition." Noble 6 blinked, that would certainly come in handy, she picked up the Tac pad, now looking more like a phone from the 21st century than a device of such grandiose as the forerunner AI had implied, and strapped it to her wrist.

her clothes had been changed too, she now realised, she was wearing a set of plain clothes, that looked rather like a long sleeved vest, and some office trousers. But the material was a lot more comfortable than any she had worn, and seemed to glow a dim light, it didn't of course, it just looked that way. She tapped the Tac pad again, as her new Mjolnir armor slowly formed around her, each new piece seemingly growing out of geometric scales that flickered before becoming solid. (A/N like Star Lord's mask in Guardians of the Galaxy.) Working from the Tac pad, it grew up her arm, over her torso and up her head and down her legs. She had levitated slightly to compensate for the size of the boots. As the process was complete, her HUD started up and she saw a blue flash over the armor, as opposed to the yellow she was used to, as her energy shields charged up, giving that familiar hum inside her headset. Testing it out, she threw a few quick punches to the air, before jogging on the spot.

Yup definitely lighter, so light in fact, it felt flimsy, like a piece of cardboard. But she had faith that the construct knew what he was doing with this stuff. She ad noticed her general speed had gone up as well, even with the weight reduction. She looked at the Tac pad, it displayed a menu, to remove the armor, retrieve a weapon, or view data that it was able to pick up from its environmental scans, like a normal one. She scrolled through the weapon options, and sure enough, every weapon was there, SMGs, rocket launchers, a Gravity Hammer, even the experimental Battle rifle. She liked it's three shot burst so selected it, and in much the same way as her armor, the Battle rifle formed on the magnetic strip on her back. She pulled it off for a physical assessment, and sure enough, it was the exact same as was in her black box data.

"I trust the functions are satisfactory Reclaimer?" 413 asked as B-312 sent the rifle back to the pocket dimension.

"Yeah it is." She stared at the wall for a moment, "Here why do you keep calling me 'Reclaimer?'" she asked the floating orb, who simply stated,

"Because humanity are Reclaimer, they are the ones who are destined to reclaim the mantle."

Ruby nodded as only more questions arose, she chose to dismiss them though, it was never really her thing, she'd leave that to Halsey, if she ever found this place.

"So what now?" she asked Martyr, as she leaned against the table. "Reach is glassed, the UNSC thinks I'm dead, and I'm not too fussed about crawling back to them again, not after my team's gone."

"You could always use the portals to go to a planet and live there instead." Martyr suggested, "They're are plenty of worlds accessible from this installation, I'm sure you could go onto one and blend into society, or live on your own."

She thought a bit. "No, I guess that doesn't sound too bad, ok, random habitable planet it is."

"Wonderful, follow me,"

The monitor flew off and out a door on the far side of the room, following not far behind, he reached a panel that he started interfacing with, and shortly after, two metal curves raised themselves from the floor, and a deep blue swirling vortex appears between them.

OK now that dream definitely seemed like a reality. So her birth parents weren't killed in a covenant attack like she had thought, so she wondered if she could go back to that world where she came from.

"Hey, Martyr," she spoke up, still staring into the vortex. "Is there any other cancelled shield worlds out there?"

"Why yes, hundreds of them." Came the response. She tried to remember aspects about them,

"Are there any with a shattered moon? With a Nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere?"

"Hang on, let me check the database, yes, I do believe there is one shield world installation, that fits your description Reclaimer, do you want me to send you to it?"

"Yeah," she said, turning back to the orb. Before he started interfacing with the controls again. A moment later, the portal flickered before seemingly going off, to only start back up again.

"There you go Reclaimer, I wish you a pleasant new life."

"Thanks, she said as she stepped through, the room vanishing in a bright white light.


	2. chapter 1: Back to unfamiliar territory

Ozpin sat in his office, reviewing the applicants for this year's new entriesto Beacon, sipping his coffee. He was in a predicament, with only 39 out of the 40 applicant's required this year, he was looking over the other failed applicants, but none caught his eye. They were all too unskilled with a weapon, too plain, or too much of a bragger, he had even looked 2 years back for someone to fill the spot, but there was nothing. He sighed as he took another sip from his coffee. Setting the scroll down, he interlocked his hands in thought.

It was then that his cameras alerted him to something in the forest. Glancing down at the monitors, he saw a woman, very tall looking, but seemingly young, looking around forever fall in awe. How did she get there... Suddenly something caught her attention, an she touched the scroll mounted on her wrist, an armour unlike any Ozpin had seen, outside of Atlesian robots, formed around her, as she pulled a combat knife from the chest plate. A blue glow surrounded her for a moment before it was gone, just in time for an Ursa major to come onto view.

Now curious, Ozpin lifted his scroll, stretching it to get a better view of the fight. The mysterious fighter, started circling around the black beast, before it charged, she rolled about of the way, as a gun materialised on her back, she drew it, and began firing the assault rifle into the Ursa major, targeting the soft spots in its black skin. The beast howled in pain as it swiped at the woman, who back-flipped easil, still firing at it, on small bursts until her clip was empty, she drew her knife again and, this time she charged, running at the beast, ducking under one swipe of a paw, jumping over the other, until she landed on it's back.

The bear tried to throw her off but she held a strong grip, and then punched his back, bending it into an unnatural shape with one punch, and then stabbing it in the head, straight through the thickly armour plated skull. It fell over, and she got off it, pulling the knife off and slotting it back in it's sheath, watching as the body disintegrated, her gun also dematerialised off her back. And that fight was all Ozpin had to see to want her, despite her height, she looked about the right age, so he would give it a shot.

Noble 6 wandered around the forest of red trees, that black bear had been weird, but not any more challenging than a Brute, she had a DMR in her hands, just for the comfort, it felt weird to go without a weapon of some kind. After entering the portal, she found herself in a similar room, the only difference was that Martyr wasn't there, she wandered around, and found the way out, and started wandering in this forest, when these big black creatures showed up, she had disposed of them easily of course. But she remembered very faintly, that these creatures were a universal problem here, despite not remembering their name.

It was then a aircraft looking like a pelican crossed with a hornet, landed in front of her, and a figure in a black suit, with a green scarf, and white hair came out and looked up at the Spartan.

"Hello there, my name is Professor Ozpin," he said to the behemoth in front of him. "I suggest we get out of Grimm territory before we talk I have some questions to ask of you."

Likewise, ruby thought as she tried to remember her name, it has been years since she was actually called by it. "Alright, I'll come with you." She nodded,

"Wonderful," was the response.

(A/N I've been using it just to let you know who it is, she hasn't heard herself be called that since before she enlisted in the Spartan program.)

Stepping into the aircraft, she saw a woman with blind hair and what appeared to be equestrian gear, complete with a whip. She glared at the Spartan, before the piolet took off, flying them to a city about 20 klicks from where she was. They flew over the city as B-312 looked down at the buildings, they looked kind of Victorian, in design, but were clearly modern at the same time. As they flew, they eventually reached a tall spire, with what looked like campus classrooms surrounding it, reminding Noble 6 of when she trained with the rest of Beta Company.

The bullhead landed in the courtyard of the estate-like structure as the trio stepped out and Ozpin lead them to his office. Which just so happened to be at the top of the tower. Inside, cogs were everywhere, of various shapes and sizes, above them, in the floor, even in his desk, all ticking, making it seem like they were in a giant clock. Ozpin sat at his desk while Noble 6 stood in the centre of the room, the equestrian who she had learned was known as Professor Goodwitch, was leaning in a pillar, near the door.

"May I have your name?" Ozpin asked, fingers interlocking as he rested his arms on the desk.

"To be honest sir, I can't remember." Came the reply.

"Amnesia?"

"Negative, its just I haven't been called it in a long time, everyone just called me by my designation."

"Your military?"

"Navy, actually, and ex, I'm presumed KIA, and with my team dead, I don't really want to go crawling back to them."

"What was your designation?"

"Spartan B-312, Noble 6."

He leaned back in his chair, Ironwood hadn't set of soldiers called 'Spartans' and her armour is something that was only given to the mechanoids, or at least it looked like it.

"Could you remove your helmet please?" he then asked, and she hesitated, she didn't tend to show her identity to those she didn't trust, but she supposed if she was going to start a new life, she would have to get used to it. She took off her helmet and set it in the desk. Ozpin's eyes widened, her hair was about shoulder length, parted to the right, and with red highlights, her features, childlike, yet, they held the strength of a hardened soldier, but it was her eyes, silver eyes, they held the same, childish glee, underneath the worn, weathered eyes that signified loss. Just like... No, it couldn't be... Could it?"

"Does the name Ruby Rose mean anything to you? Goodwitch's eyes widened, but she remained silent.

The woman in question paused,

"Yes, I think that was my name, didn't know the surname though, Ruby Rose..." she echoed.

"How old are you Ruby?" he then asked,

"20," came the quick reply. Too old, and older than she looked, her face, despite the hardness, was that of a 15 year old. But the odds of there being another Ruby Rose, with silver eyes... He was willing to take the chance.

"Does this woman look familiar to you, Miss Rose?" he questioned as he held up a picture of Yang Xiao Long, her sister, her long blonde hair, in a ponytail as her lilac eyes seemed void of emotion.

"Yes... Though I can't place where," she took the scroll, "Defiantly familiar..."

"Then does the name Yang Xiao Long ring any bells?

"Yes! It does, but, I don't know why... Why does it?" she asked, herself more than anyone else, but Ozpin answered for her anyway,

"It would be that way because she is your sister."

"But I had no family, I was an only child and my parents were killed- she cut herself off, as she stared at the ground, her face adorning a confused expression, "Unless.. That wasn't a dream... Is my mother alive?" she then asked, looking at Ozpin, directly in the eyes.

"No, she died 12 years ago."

"But my father is...?"

"Yes, he lives in a small house out in Patch. So it is defiantly you who vanished all those years ago?"

"Yes, I believe it was, I encountered a mysterious construct who used a portal to warp me off world."

"I see, so you weren't with General Ironwood then?"

She shook her head, "No, I was with the UNSC; United Nations Space Command, a group of humanity that originated from a planet called Earth and colonised the galaxy."

He nodded in affirmation, leaning back in his chair. "Well Miss Rose, you said you wanted a new life, well I have a proposition for you, I an headmaster of Beacon Academy, the place we are right now, and term begins in a few weeks. Your sister has been accepted into the school, and since you were only 4 when you vanished, I think it is fair to assume you have forgotten what little had been taught about the world of Remnant, would you like to attend Beacon?" after a moment of thought, Ruby Rose, made her decision.

"Yeah, I would, do you have a place I can stay in the meantime?"


	3. chapter 2: good ol' family reunion

Yang Xiao Long stepped off the bullhead for Beacon, bag slung over one shoulder, hair, tied up, and started walking towards the main hall, not to fussed with her surroundings. That was her mistake as she bumped into a 7'4" girl and almost fell over, "Woah, you ok?" the giant asked,

"Yeah, woah, your tall," she shrugged,

"Get that alot." It wasn't exactly a lie.

"Yeah, hey, you look familiar, have I seen you before?" Yang asked,

"Possibly, I travel alot." Ruby didn't want to introduce herself just yet, let Yang think about it and not feint from shock. Or think she's just messing with her. "See you around, she said, before wandering off.

Almost colliding with a luggage trolley, filled with suitcases. "Hey, watch where your going you brute!"

Her eye twitched, she knew that the girl didn't mean to relate her to the Covenant brutes, but if she got one thing, it was that she was a rich kid, too pampered to pay attention to anyone but her servants. "Sorry, didn't see where I was going, Miss...?"

"Schnee, Weiss Schnee." She said indignantly, as if Ruby was supposed to know who she was, she probably did, but being off a planet for over 12 years, you kind of not keep up with famous people.

"Sorry, I'm from a very isolated area." Another voice, interrupted the pair just as Weiss was about to make a remark,

"Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company," it came from a girl with Yellow piercing eyes, and jet black hair, while wearing a bow.

"Thank you, at least someone recognises me."

"The same company who ignores safety regulations and abuses Faunus labours in the mines."

"Well... I..." Weiss tried to come up with a good comeback, but couldn't, so just huffed, grabbed, her trolley, and stormed off to the hall. Before she caused any more trouble for students, the Spartan, now civilian, walked into the hall, she was easily the tallest person there, standing a foot over everyone else, so, she could see over the top of everyone as they all filed into the main hall. Ozpin then came to the top of the stage, and began his speech.

"I'll...keep this brief. You have travelled here today in search of knowledge—to hone your craft and acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you, and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose – direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step."

The speech reminded Ruby of the one he got during the first day of basic, but albeit a different tone behind it. With it out of the way, Goodwitch took the Mic and addressed everyone to stay in the ball room, and that teams and partners will be assigned tomorrow. Ruby had thought about this for a while now, and decided that she would use this opportunity to get to know Yang better, so she went to her tool to get a bedroll, a blanket, and pillow, before getting changed into the clothes that she had on after the augmentations at Reach. They were very comfortable to sleep in.

She headed to the ball room, and quickly spotted her elder sister, as silly as it seemed, being over a foot taller than her, and because of something, be it cryo, space travel, or portals, 4 years older. But none the less, she sat down beside the golden brawler, "Hey, you ok? Your looking kind of down." Yang glanced up to Ruby.

"Yeah, it's just..." she sighed, "It's the anniversary of my sister going missing, it was only a week after my step mom died, I've... Never really recovered." Uh oh, this had to be a coincidence right, and what terrible luck that was.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my parents died when I was young, grew up in a very strict orphanage." It again, wasn't exactly a lie, just a half truth and half lie.

"Yeah, must have been rough."

"Do you mind telling me about her?"

There was a moments pause as Yang thought, "She was the most cheerful person I've ever known, always looking on the bright side of things," she chuckled as she continued, "My dad always said that she was going to change the world with that smile." It was a hollow laugh, but one that signified that she enjoyed those memories. It was so hard on Ruby, she wanted to just tell her that her sister sitting right in front of her.

"Well, you said she went missing right? She could still come back, who knows, she might be closer than you think."

That got a laugh,"I'm sorry, she's been missing for 12 years, I don't think she would have been able to survive in a Grimm infested forest for that long."

"Well, what would you do if I told you, I know she is alive, and that when she went into that forest, she went to somewhere else far away, and is still alive?"

"Well then why didn't she come back?" Yang asked, anger and desperation seeping into her voice,

"Because she didn't know how. Until recently."

"Then why isn't she here?"

Ruby deliberately paused, "I don't think we've properly introduced ourselves yet."

Yang blinked at the sudden change in topic, "Oh.. Uh, Yang Xiao Long, and you are?"

"Ruby Rose," and at that Yang froze, the only thing that moved was her eyes, which darted up and down Ruby, "I know your sister is alive, because I am your sister Yang, long time no see." The golden brawler, only said two things, after she rushed into a bear hug around Ruby, or as much as she could get about, "It's really you. Why didn't you come back?"

"I told you before, I couldn't, I was found by this weird orb thing that portaled me off planet, I grew up with other humans on a different planet, and thought that this place was just a dream."

"Why are you, so..." she gestured to all of Ruby, "Big?" was the only way she could describe it.

Ruby scratched the back of her head, looking round the rest of the room to make sure everyone was asleep, which they were, thankfully.

"It should be classified, and if I tell you I risk getting hunted down by ONI, but they all think I'm dead, so, I'm gonna tell yah, where I grew up was part of the UNSC, an interstellar organisation, and within their navy, they had a program I volunteered for, called the Spartan program they those who were accepted a series of augmentations, I don't know the specifics, but they increased my bone durability, speed, strength, reaction time, eyesight, and of course height." She leaned back on her bed roll,

"I'll spare you the things I had to go through, and just say, I was probably their biggest success since the previous iteration of the program."

"Why?"

"Pretty sure I'm the last one left. Bar maybe 1,"

Yang lent down on her bed roll, "This is... Wow, so much to take in,"

"Yeah, in sorry I ran away, I can't remember much about it, but I think I just couldn't accept mom's death."

"But that construct thing, that couldn't be true, I mean how haven't we found it yet?" she rolled over, facing Ruby.

"I think part of the reason is the construct believes humans shouldn't be here, at least that's what it told me."

"Still can't believe it."

"Hey I can show you my black box data if you want, just have to put in my armour, can't just grab the helmet, and I kinda want to keep it a surprise."

"Why? Is it that special?"

"Well, let's just say, before a construct in the planet I was posted on last upgraded it, it cost the same as a 478m long space ship, with one of their most powerful weapons on it."

"Woah, That's... Expensive. And big, the biggest ship the Atlesian military is about 300m." Ruby laughed, "What?"

"400m is big, that's a small frigate! Ok, ok, The Pillar of Autumn, a ship that left the planet shortly before I did, it was a light cruiser, and it was 1,171 meters long, 352m wide, and 414 meters tall, weighing in at 9 million metric tones."

Yang's jaw dropped, "That's a _light_ cruiser?! Jeezus, how big is the biggest ship you have?"

"Well, they're currently building a ship that's almost 6k long. I think that's the biggest."

"Man, that's huge! How do you have the resources for it?"

"Interstellar civilisation, we can go through slipspace. "

"But Dust doesn't work in space."

"We don't use Dust, it's a Remnant exclusive thing, same with Grimm, Aura and Semblances." Yang paused for a moment, face frowning in confusion.

"Ok two things, 1, what do you use then, and 2, how long have you been back if you know about Grimm and all that stuff."

"Nuclear fusion, and a few weeks."

"Nuclear fusion?" Yang asked, confused.

"Yeah, I don't know the specifics of it, but its basically smashing two atoms together to create energy."

"Huh, well, I should get some sleep, I don't know about you, but I want to be well rested for tomorrow." Ruby nodded in affirmation, before rolling onto her back.

About 10 minutes later however, Yang spoke up, "Hey Ruby, you still awake?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I can't get to sleep. Do you want to spar to tire each other out?"

"Sure, though I probably won't break a sweat."

They both got up, and traversed the maze of students sleeping around them, got changed into sparring gear, Ruby, in a white tank vest, cargo trousers and combat boots, Yang in a similar outfit, though her tank top was yellow, and headed outside. It was cool as the midnight breeze swept around them, they stood about 20ft apart, as both fell into a combat stance.

The two sisters circled each other for a bit, before Yang made the first move, sprinting towards Ruby and lunging with a right hook, which was easily dodged, and followed up with a left to the side, this was partied, as Ruby then swung her leg around, tripping Yang up. She fell over, and sat there for a bit.

"C'mon, you want to be a huntress, and can't even land a hit in me? Let's try again." She helped Yang up, before falling into stance again.

"Just testing the waters sis," Yang remarked, to which Ruby snorted.

"Sure you were." Again Yang lunged, this time letting Ruby go for the first hit.

Ruby swung her arm to the side, aiming to strike her near the hip, but her knife edge pam was blocked, as Yang tried to use this to her advantage, but was stopped mid swing, as she got kneed in the gut, she keeled over, and an elbow sent her into the ground once again. She groaned in pain as she got up and rubbed her lower back,

"You weren't kidding about those augmentations," Ruby just shrugged in response.

"What's your Aura at?" she asked,

"It's hard to say without my scroll, but I'd say about... 60%, you sure pack a wallop."

"Yeah, but your resilient enough, I thought I would have to hold back a bit, but you took those hits like a champ."

"Really? Felt like you were holding back,"

"Yeah, but not as much as I expected I would have to, want to continue?" Yang was breathing heavily, as she was helped up by Ruby again.

"No, I think I'll call it a night." Ruby nodded and the pair started to walk back to the hall.


	4. Chapter 3: The short of the draw

Yang woke up early the next morning, but evidently not early enough, according to Ruby, as her bed roll was gone, and Ruby was nowhere to be seen as well. So Yang just got up, and got dressed in the changing rooms. When she was getting Ember Celica from her rocket locker, she finally saw Ruby again, wearing the same outfit as last night. It was dark then, so Yang couldn't make out any details, but now under the harsh, artificial lights, she could see Ruby's body was riddled with scars, scrapes, gashes, and bubbling of some kind, that Yang didn't know what was from, but the scars that stood out were the long straight lines over her arms, looking like a kind of circuit board, they were old scars, older than the rest, bar a few scrapes.

"Yeah, those are augmentation scars," Ruby clarified, noticing her starring, "Got them when I was 14, one hell of a puberty."

"How come they look so old then, that would have been a year ago right?"

"Nah, for some reason, I don't know what, I've gotten older than I should be, I'm actually Turing 21 next month."

"Wait, then if your older than me, who's the big sister?"

Ruby shrugged, "I still see you as my older sister, even if I have more experience."

Both watched as a blonde, holding a piece of paper looked for his locker, and as two other students retrieved their weapons, one practically bouncing off the walls as she talked to her friend.

"Jeez, someone's excited." Ruby commented. Just then Weiss brushed passed her, bumping into her deliberately as she walked over to a redhead.

"Hey, watch it," she called out to the heiress, "You can just ask me to move you know." Though the ice queen just ignored her, as she chatted to the redhead. "Hate those kind of guys, always assuming they have a right to everything."

"Hey, well she is the heiress to the biggest company on Remnant, soo... She kinda does," Yang responded, "Hey, by the way, you haven't gone to your locker, what's your weapon?"

The Spartan just grinned and tapped her nose, "Just you wait and see, I don't need a locker." Just then, Professor Goodwitch's voice rang over the intercom, _"Could all first years please report to Beacon Cliff for initiation. Repeat, all first years report to Beacon Cliff."_

"Guess that's us," Yang said, closing her locker, and heading out with Ruby, who had now put on a coat.

All the first years were lined up on a series of metal plates on the ground of the cliff, Ozpin and Goodwitch stood in front of them as they gave instructions, while they listened, everyone was also half looking at Ruby, easily being the tallest in the school.

"For years, you have all trained to become warriors, and today, your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Ozpin began, and Goodwitch continued with,

"Now, I'm sure you have all heard the rumours spreading about the assignment of teams, well allow us to put and end to your confusion. Each of you will be given Teammates, today."

"These Teammates, will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you can work well. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your next partner for the next four years."

"Nice, getting us to adapt to who we're paired with." Ruby hummed, "I can work with that."

"After you've partnered up, make your way to the northern end of the forest, you will meet opposition along the way, do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." This got a few murmurs from the students, "You will be graded and monitored for the duration of your initiation, but our instructors will not intervene. You will find a temple at the end of the path, containing several relics, each pair must choose one, and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item, as well as your standing, and you will be graded appropriately. Are there any questions?"

The blonde raised his hand, "Yeah, um, sir?"

"Good, now take your positions."

The blond continued to ask his question, but Ruby wasn't paying attention as she watched Weiss get thrown off the cliff by the spring loaded, probably pneumatic platform. She smiled, as here eyes narrowed, this was going to be fun.

Each person in turn was thrown off about every 5 seconds, Yang, who was in a much better mood today, whipped out a pair of sunglasses, winked at Ruby, before putting them on, and was launched off.

Ruby fell into a crouch, waiting for the launch, and next thin she knew she was soaring through the sky. A scream came shortly after to signify the blonde's launch. She watched as Yang propelled herself with her shotgun gauntlets, the creativity with these weapons astounded her, as she tapped her Tac pad, having her armour form around her, just in time for her to go into a combat roll and start running, she left her visor unpolarised, feeling like having it reflective would be cheating as she could choose who she paired up with, and set out to where Yang was looking like she would land. She readied a DMR just in time to burst through the trees, and clap eyes right into Weiss, she skid to a halt.

"Great," she huffed as she looked down at the heiress.

The person in question was staring at the sudden appearance of a gun and armour, that looked nothing like she had seen before, and then clapped eyes onto the brute that was staring through the visor, glaring at her. She immediately turned round and walked off, hoping to fine anyone else, but the only person she encountered, was the blonde who had tried to flirt with him earlier, she hadn't even paid attention to his name, stuck in the tree by Pyrrha Nikkos' spear. She let out a annoyed, and exasperated grunt of a sigh as she strode back to the Spartan, at leas she wasn't trying to flirt with her every moment she got.

"Looks like your stuck with me," she remarked to the heiress. To which her response was to simply go,

"Be quiet you brute, where did you even get those?"

The glare the two of them shared was the kind of if looks could kill, the world would be void of life.

"Hey, personally, I would be with anyone else but you, but these are the rules, and we've got to follow them, as for the weapons and armour, that's classified."

"Urgh, you sound like my sister." Started to stride off.

"You going the wrong way you know, north is that way,"

"And how do you know that?"

"Compass in my HUD." Ruby clarified.

"Well, I hope you can at least keep up in that thing, it must weigh a tone."

Ruby snorted, "Only 159kg, and I can jog at 30 of you really want."

"30 what, meters a minute?"

"Miles an hour." She said as she demonstrated, jogging casually about a hundred meters in just under 2 seconds. Weiss' jaw dropped, as she sprinted with a time dilatation glyph to catch up.

"Hey! Don't leave behind I'm your partner!"

Ruby huffed, "Just don't get in my way,"

The pair continued to head north until they found the path, it was then a small group Grimm popped up on Ruby's radar,

"Contacts!" she shout at, and spun round to fine 3 Beowolves and a Beowolf Alpha. She immediately bright her scope up and sniped the Alpha in the eye, it howled in pain as the others spread out. She put the gun over her shoulder as she pulled out her knife, "And what do you plan to accomplish using that? That's a Beowolf Alpha, it can easily hit with a force that can easily decapitate an ordinary person."

"You just focus on the Cannon fodder princess." Was all Ruby said as she startled circling the one eyed Alpha, teeth bared in a snarl. It then charged at her with all 4s, attempting to knock her down, but she just jumped and flipped over the beast, landing behind it and swiped at an unprotected part of it's back. It howled again as it made a blind swipe that was easily evaded. It turned to face Ruby again as it plodded over carefully, as it got a few feet away, it stopped, red eye, gleaming.

Ruby lunged then, pushing herself to close the gap in a split second, and punched the black monster right in the centre of its skull plate. It made a scream that was cut off as it died, collapsing to the ground and disintegrating into black dust. Weiss had just finished disposing of the trio of Beowolves and turned to see Ruby standing in front of her, waiting patiently, gun back in her hand. "Ready?" she asked, mockingly.

"H-how, did you defeat an Alpha with your bear hands?!" she spluttered.

Ruby chuckled and replied, "Princess, I've defeated a Ursa Major with my bear hands. Now let's keep moving, I don't want to be the last one back at the cliff."

As the pair continued to jog along the path, well, Weiss Jogged, Ruby, just did a quick walk, but as they went along, they found a small ruin, with a circular structure, and a number of pedestals. On top of those pedestals, were a bunch of chess pieces, Yang and the Black haired girl that called out the bad side to the SDC the day before were also there.

"Yo, sis!" Ruby called out, as the pair whipped round to face them.

"That's your armour!?" Yang began as they met up. "No wonder it cost the same as a spaceship, it looks like you can go into space with it."

"Yup, also increases my strength, durability, reaction time, speed, etc." Ruby began listing off, "Complete with energy shielding."

"Energy shielding?" the other three in the group questioned.

"It's like a second Aura, one generated by the armour. Anyway, what relic did you choose Yang?"

"Oh, we just got here, why?"

"I have a feeling that's how we choose teams, we pick a piece and whoever has their same colour counterpart is on their team."

"Ooh, ok." They all looked at the various chess pieces.

"How about the knights?" Ruby suggested, picking up the one white one.

"Sure," replied Yang as she went to pick up the other white horse figurehead.

"Oh no, I'm not being on a team with the pair of you," Weiss objected, the three of them looked at her,

"And why not?" Blake asked, eyes narrowing.

"One brute is bad enough, I can't deal with two of them."

"Ok, if your going to call me something, can it not be Brute, I have bad associations with that word, and it's getting really hard for me not to act on them."

"Well you are one, your nothing but a big stuck up brute!"

Ruby punched a stone column out from the ruin, it was pulverised into small stones from the punch, "I am not, a Brute, don't compare me with them, not with the way they torture their victims for their enjoyment." She said in a deathly calm voice, "If they ever come here, you better change your mind, otherwise, I am not helping you."

She was about to walk away, but a scream stopped her.

"Some girls in trouble in trouble," Yang commented as she tried to steer the topic into something a little less tense. And shortly after, a loud "YEE-HAH!" was heard as an Ursa burst through the trees, a pink explosion was seen, as it fell to the ground, as the hyperactive ginger from the locker room rolled off it's back, "Aww, its broken..." the blonde had also appeared as his body flew across the sky, and into some trees.

Out from behind the Ursa, the boy she was talking to came around panting, while resting his hand on the Ursa.

"Nora... Please... Don't ever do that again." He said between pants.

Nora however was gone from the Ursa, and by the relics. She stared at the white queen piece.

"Ooh," she said picking it up, "I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle!" she chanted before her partner called out "NORA!"

"Coming Ren!" she called out, before zipping past them back to his side.

"Did she just ride in on an Ursa?" Blake asked, but before anyone could reply, a screech was heard as the redhead that Weiss was talking to in the lockers burst through being chased by a giant, ancient deathstalker.

She dodged the claws as she ran to the temple, "Pyrrha!" the blonde called out, from his position in the tree. "Jaune!" she called out in response.

"Need a hand?" Ruby asked at the base of the tree Jaune was hanging in.

"Yes please." She punched the tree, causing a fist size hole to go right through as it began to fall, "Woah, wait!" Jaune exclaimed, before she then jumped up as the tree was falling, and pulled him out as the tree slammed against the ground.

"T-thanks?" he stumbled, as he was set back down.

"No problem. Just keep back."

Pyrrha then jumped out of the way and landed in front of the group,

"Yay, the Gang's all hear, now we can die together." Yang said sarcastically, and Ruby scoffed,

"Not if I can help it," she polarised her visor, and pulled out the gravity hammer.

What is that?" Weiss asked,

"Just a little something from a 'friend' of mine." There was a burst of rose petals and suddenly she was in front of the deathstalker, and slammed it down on the deathstalker's head. Just before it made contact, she activated the gravity generator, sending an impact into the hard exoskeleton, and an impact crater was formed as the head of the giant scorpion was pushed into the ground. It hissed in pain as it tried to swipe at the Spartan, but she had used the momentum of the hammer to backflip out of the way. When she landed, she thrust the pommel of the hammer into an eye.

The monster screamed in pain as its tail made a strike towards the attacker, but it was cut off by a blade of plasma as she summoned an energy sword. She then thrust it into the skull, killing it as it collapsed.

Retrieving her weapons, she made it back to the group who just stared in awe, Jaws agape. "Nice, seems he gave them the same energy source as my armour." She muttered to herself as she examined her weapons, before sending them back to the pocket dimension.

"OK how did you do that?" Weiss demanded, "And you can't say that was you semblance because the petals would be that."

"Heh, that's technology from an ancient civilisation for you."

"What do you mean, ancient civilisation, how is that powered with Dust, no dust can create a blade like that."

"That's because it isn't Dust, now, are we going to keep discussing this and get attacked, or complete the mission?"

That snapped everyone's attention back to the present. As Jaune and Yang picked up a white queen and Knight respectively, and ran to catch up with the rest of them.

"I still want an explanation," Weiss stated as they ran to the cliff, well Ruby jogged but that was besides the point.

"Calm your jets, you'll get one back at Beacon." A blip appeared on her radar as they approached a tower near the cliff. "Heads up, big one incoming." There was a screech as the giant shadow of a bird showed them. "Nevermore!" a flurry of giant feathers rained down upon them, striking the ground about them. Everyone leapt to the side to evade the volley of feathers, and kept running.

"If we can get to the ruins we can take it, the high ground will give us a better chance!" Ruby called out, "Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, Ren, distract it so we can gain high ground without it destroying our footing. Yang, Blake, Weiss, follow me, were gonna take the fight to it." Everyone nodded as they split up to fulfil their roles.

Jaune and Co split off as Pyrrha and Ren began firing at it, Jaune clanged his sword against his shield and started calling out to the giant bird, all of this seemed to have the desired effect as the bird paned towards them,

"Here it comes!" Jane called out as more feathers were fired like a machine gun at them. Meanwhile Ruby and her team ran towards the ruins, as Ruby scrolled through her Tac pad, selecting the jet pack ability, jumping up what she could and jet packing up to the top of the tower. Yang used her Gauntlets to propel her jump up to broken pillars and used them as stepping stones to jump higher. Weiss used glyphs to scale the main tower and Blake used a cat-like grace to scale the walls of the tower. Up top, Ruby had pulled out sniper rifle and had zoomed in on the Nevermore, firing a shot straight into its eye. It screeched in rage as it turned its attention back to Ruby, which was exactly what she wanted. The others had reached to top now, as Ruby reloaded and started to fire again.

"Get ready to jump!" she called out over the rifle fire.

"What! You want us to ride that thing?! Are you insane?!" Weiss spluttered as Ruby dematerialised the rifle.

"Quite possibly, but being normal's boring anyway." The oversized crow screeched again as it dived at the 4 on the tower. The all jumped up, and landed on its back. Ruby pulled out her knife and twirled it between her fingers, crawling up to the gap in its wings, and jammed it into the space right in the middle of its back, another loud screech was heard.

"What are you doing now?!" Weiss called out.

"Oh nothing much, just ripping it's spine out."She dragged the blade down the Nevermore's back and carved up bits of black flesh until she saw what she was looking for.

Yang and Blake shared a worried look while Weiss stated at the Spartan in disbelief at what she was saying. But that disbelief was later forgotten as the black and white shape of the Grimm's spinal cord was ripped out, and the form they were riding on began to plummet. "Hang on!" Ruby called out as she locked her armour. Weiss used a series of Gravitational glyphs to secure everyone to the corpse as it fell, right onto the top of the cliff where Ozpin and Goodwitch were waiting.

As they all got up, Weiss just glared at Ruby, now out of her armour. "I swear, you are going to be the death of me, tried not to kill your Teammates from now on, and maybe I'll be nicer." Before she turned round and left the group.

A laugh rang out from the corpse that was slowly disintegrating, "That. Was. Amazing!" Yang exclaimed as she sat up, "You do that thing all the time Ruby?! Oh this is going to be fun!" Blake just sat up, shook her head, and let out a sigh of relief.

Ozpin and Goodwitch shared a look.

"I certainly hope you don't regret your decision headmaster." She said sarcastically, to which Ozpin chuckled,

"Not one bit.


	5. Chapter 4: A lesson in humility

After the others got back they all went to the hall for the initiation ceremony to commence.

"Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkyrie. You retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will be together as Team JNPR, (Juniper) led by… Jaune Arc." Ozpin said as he got to their team.

"L-lead by..?" Jaune spluttered,

"Congratulations, young man." the headmaster commemorated the young warrior, before continuing with the team assignments.

"Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long. You retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will be together as Team RWBY, (Ruby) led by… Ruby Rose."

The team went up to be congratulated, but Weiss had a look of shock and surprise as she then proceeded to scowl at the soldier.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be an... interesting year."

As the new team made their way to their dorm Weiss pressed Ruby for questions on her gear.

"What do you mean 'it doesn't run on Dust'?! how could it not run on Dust?!" she demanded as they entered the room.

"Because, while I was born on Remnant, I didn't grow up here."

"What do you mean you didn't grow up on Remnant, where else could you have grown up?"

"A planet called Onyx." Weiss was running out of patience with the brute's outlandish accusations.

"But Dust doesn't work in space, how could you have possibly gotten there!?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, It's not Dust! Dust is a Remnant exclusive thing, same as Grimm, Aura, and Semblances, I don't remember much about how I left here, but I have a feeling it was by the same way I got back here. A portal in an ancient building built by an ancient alien race. An AI of this race used portals to get me off this planet and onto another. The same way another one got me here by the same method."

"What powers it then?!"

"I don't know!" Ruby shouted, as the others froze, "I know a process called nuclear fusion used to power my armour. Before I had it upgraded by this AI, and, while I don't know the specifics, fusion is where you get two atoms and smash them together to get a heavier atom plus a lot of energy. And summoning the weapons, like this?" She summoned an assault rifle to demonstrate, "Same race that upgraded my armour, so I have no clue how it works, only that they're stored in a pocket dimension."

"And how do I know that isn't just one big fib you countered up, it sounds preposterous,"

Ruby sighed, "Give me a minute then, I need to summon my whole armour to get the black box data." She did so and took off her helmet, retrieving a small sim card-like object and then sent her armour back. She then put it in her Tac pad as a holographic display popped up of the room, through her eyes, she rewound it to about 6 weeks ago and pressed play.

Ruby was looking at a giant silver structure with blue highlights, staring at it in wonder as a robotic suddenly sounded behind her "Ah, A Reclaimer!" the voice said as she spun round to face her assailant, her rifle at the ready.

There, she saw a silver orb, with a large blue dot in the centre. "I am 413-Sovereign Martyr, monitor of this shield world installation, At least I was until The Didact got corrupted with the Logic Plague, then the shield world upgrade was cancelled half complete." The orb chuckled before floating around her. "It appears your combat skin is damaged, and out of date, I can upgrade it if you like, along with body augmentations that will help you withstand the flood, though I must say, your weapons would be terribly ineffective."

Ruby still held the gun up to the mysterious construct. Even if it seemed to have no apparent threat, "I assure you I mean no harm Reclaimer, I am simply suggesting that we get to a safer location so I can do what is necessary." Sovereign Martyr stated, as she lowered her weapon. "Your who I saw all those years ago." She realized, "The one who teleported me from my Home world."

"I can assure you that was not me Reclaimer, I have not met one of your kind in approximately 100,000 of your measurement of years. Shall we go?" he asked in a joyous tone.

"Yes…" came the nervous reply, before they were teleported inside.

She tensed up at the sudden action as she assessed her new surroundings, she was in a large room with a high ceiling, too high to make out in fact, with various consoles and panels lining the walls. In the centre was a table looking very much like an operating table, "Please remove your combat skin, and I will have it set to be repaired, and upgraded, do you have any special requests regarding it's upgrades?" Martyr questioned, as Ruby up at the monitor in disbelief,

"It takes about 5 hours to get out of it on my own." Was all she said.

"Ah I see your predicament, one moment." He flew off to a wall before seemingly doing something to a holographic interface, and series of rings and machinery appeared from the floor, "I scanned your black box data earlier and I believe this is what's required to remove the armour correct?"

The video paused as she looked up at the rest of her team, "Is that enough proof for you?" Weiss fell down onto a bed,

"So your saying, you got portaled away,"

"Yup,"

"To a different planet that doesn't have Dust,"

"two for two,"

"Joined the military, and became a supersoldier,"

"Right again,"

"And somehow found another structure and just left your station?"

She scratched the back of her head as her armour dematerialised, "Not exactly, the UNSC thinks I'm dead, and as much as am a good soldier, I decided why not take a chance and have a new life, you know."

Blake then spoke up, "That thing spoke about 'the flood,' what did he mean?"

"Oh, I asked him later, apparently he rechecked the databases and they were wiped out, so there was no reason to worry."

"Right, what about the 100,000 years since he last saw a human,"

Ruby shrugged, "No answers here. Forgot about it to be honest."

"And, why does he call you 'Reclaimer'?"

"He said it was humanity's job to reclaim 'The Mantle', whatever that is. I decided it's best not to get caught up in that since I'm supposed to be starting off fresh."

"I see." Weiss muttered, "Well I'm going to bed, I don't particularly want to be late for class tomorrow."

"Well, would you rather unpack now and get up with plenty of time to spare tomorrow, or have to get up really early to unpack on time for class?" Ruby pointed out.

Weiss opened her mouth to object, then closed it again, "Fine, but after that I'm going straight to bed."

About half an hour later, everything was unpacked. Ruby had minimal stuff since she had only arrived a few weeks ago. Even though she only had the few sets of outfits and a chess set, along with Yang's, Blake's and Weiss's stuff, it was still overly crowded.

"Urgh we have too much stuff, I can't even reach my bed." Yang complained, as they were sandwiched together.

"Bunk beds?" Ruby suggested.

"What? No! That sounds incredibly dangerous." Weiss protested

"And super awesome!" Yang pitched in,

"It does seem efficient." Blake added,

"Well, I think we should put it to a vote,"

"We just did," Ruby deadpanned, as they then made the beds stack on top of each other.

"Okay, who's sleeping where? I should probably take a bottom bunk since, you know since I weigh 102kg, so I'll take this one." She said as she sat on her bed, (Weiss's in show)

"I don't mind where I sleep personally," Yang said, as she looked at the other pair.

"Well, think we should sleep on the same side as our partners, that would make sense wouldn't it?" Blake suggested, as she picked the bed across from Ruby.

"Well that means I get this bed then." Yang stated as she cambered up to her bunk, Weiss was forced to go onto the bed above Ruby, as she muttered to herself, before going to get changed.

When she got back, they all took it in turns to get changed before going to sleep, we'll, three of them. Ruby was kept awake by the deaths of Noble Team, she would be damned if she were going to let that happen again, especially with her sister on the team. So she spent all night planning how she could avoid that scenario. Not that it wasn't hard, she had spent weeks awake before, and devising a training regime wasn't difficult either. She would make Team RWBY into the best team of huntresses on Remnant. She decided to propose it tomorrow, let them think it over. She then checked the clock, 5 am, time for her morning training, she got up, got changed into the same outfit she had when sparing, and went out to do 500 laps around the school.

"Monsters, Demons, Prowlers of the Night! Yes, the Creatures of Grimm have many names." Professor Port began his lecture. RWBY were sitting near the front, trying to pay attention, all of them blissfully unaware of what happened last night for Ruby, it hadn't even seemed to take an effect on her. "But I merely refer to them as Prey! Ha-hah!" The old teacher continued, pointing to the ceiling, his beer belly jiggling slightly. A student near the back said something that couldn't be made out as Port cleared his throat and continued. "And you shall to upon graduation from this prestigious academy." He began to pace around the room, "Now, as I was saying, Vale, as well the other 3 kingdoms, are safe havens in an otherwise treacherous world. Our planet is absolutely teeming with creatures that would live nothing more than to tear you to pieces."

"Not unlike some other creatures I know…" Ruby muttered to herself, but it was still loud enough for Weiss to hear it, though she said nothing.

"And that's where we come in. Huntsmen, Huntresses, those who have sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves, from what you may ask? Why, the very world! But first a story from my childhood, there was once a man, a young, handsome man… Me."

He droned on with his tale of seemingly nonsense, Yang had tuned him out, daydreaming. Blake had a book, but Weiss and Ruby paid attention. Well, Ruby did, trying to discern stuff to take notes on from the over exaggerations he listed. Weiss was looking like she was paying attention, but really had her eyes on Ruby, glaring at her with the ice cold glare she was known for. 'How did she, a nobody from another planet, get the role of team leader?' She asked herself. Okay yes, she did come up with a good plan to deal with the Grimm yesterday, but it was nothing that she couldn't do, and Ruby's way of handling things was way too barbaric. If Whitley saw her now, she shuddered at the thought.

"And the moral of the story, a true huntsman must be honourable,"

Ruby leaned back in her chair so that it was against the wall,

"A true huntsman should be dependable, a true huntsman must be strategic, well educated and wise," Through Port saying this, Ruby had slowly gotten to the point where she wasn't paying attention anymore, having heard this kind of song and dance before. Weiss had steadily been getting more and more annoyed at her leaders seeming lack of these qualities, and snapped a pencil in half.

"Now, who here thinks they are the embodiment of these traits?" Port asked.

Weiss's hand shot up, "I do, sir!"

"Way to be humble there, Weiss," Ruby commented as she raised her own hand.

"Well then, let's find out, go get changed and face your opponents."

Ruby slammed a hand on the table, "You forgot one thing sir, a huntsman should be ready for a fight at any moment."

"That is true, Miss Rose. I see you're confident, would you like to take on your opponent now then?" she nodded, "Very well then. Miss Schnee, please be seated until the battle is over, then you may change and face your own."

Ruby pulled out a knife from her pocket, the knife that was normally on her armour, and stepped up to where Port and the cage of a snorting Grimm was waiting, she threw away the sheath, and twirled the knife in her hands. Weiss crossed her arms as she glared at her team leader. "Ready?" Port asked, reaching for his blunderbuss axe off the wall, Ruby nodded, and he brought the blade down on the blade down on the lock of the cage.

A Boarbatusk practically exploded out of the cage as the black hog stared at Ruby, red eyes glowing. It charged, going strained from the Spartan, now huntress-in-training, who dove out of the way and threw her knife into the boar's eye. It squealed, but didn't falter, as it turned and charged again. This time she caught the beast by its tusks, slowing it to a standstill as she slid a few inches back. She grunted as she pulled at the tusks, snapping them off. This elicited more shrieks of pain from the Boarbatusk as Ruby jumped back, holding the tusks like daggers. Despite the now clear disadvantage, the boar changed again, but was stopped by a kick, sending it into the air and causing it to flip slowly, as it's belly became exposed, Ruby drove both tusks home. There was a final squeal and then it fell over and disintegrated. Retrieving her knife, Ruby sat dawn.

"Well done, Miss Rose. You are certainly a Huntress in the making, how will your partner fair, however?" Weiss scoffed and rolled her eyes before going off to get changed.

When she got back in her combat skirt, Myrtenaster at the ready, she stood in front of the class poised at the ready. The same routine for releasing the caged Boarbatusk in much the same manner. It charged and Weiss dodged to the side while attempting to slashing it, but it's armour was too thick to do any harm.

"Ho-ho! Weren't expecting that were you?" boomed Port. Weiss dismissed him as she glided towards the beast with a lunge, getting hew sword jammed between its tusks.

"Bold approach, I like it!" Port commented again, distracting her, the black boar struggled, and threw Myrtenaster across the room where it clattered to the floor.

"Ho! Now what will you do without your weapon?"

She grunted before looking towards the Boarbatusk, who was now charging at her again, she rolled out of the way just in time and sprinted to retrieve the Multi-Action Dust Rapier, resuming her position. She could only watch as the boar jumped up into a spinning tire of tusk and other sharp pieces of bone, Before charging her. She dodged again, but it just bounced off the wall and kept going. This time she was cornered, so she summoned a glyph which the spinning ball of black and white death charged into, releasing a squeal as it fell into its back, Weiss didn't hesitate to exploit this, jumping off another glyph in the air, driving her sword right into the belly of the beast. It let out a squeal in pain, before falling limp and disintegrating.

Weiss was left panting in the floor, sword still in the decaying corpse of the monster she had just slayed, Port clapped his hands in congratulations "Bravo! Bravo! It seems we do indeed have two fine huntresses in training. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today. Be sure to cover the assigned readings, and stay vigilant!"

Weiss got up, composed herself, and promptly sent an icy glare in Ruby's direction, who remained unflinching. She then strode outside, not giving her team another look. Ruby sighed as she stood up and went to go talk some sense into the girl. By the time she found her though, Professor Port had gotten to her first, as she overheard the middle of their conversation.

"I see a girl before me who has spent her entire life getting exactly what she wanted."

"That's not even remotely true!" There was a pause, "Well... not entirely true."

"So the outcome didn't fall in your favour. Do you really believe that acting in such a manner would cause those in power to reconsider their decision? So instead fretting about what you don't have, savour what you do. Hone your skills, perfect every technique, and be not the best leader, but the best person you can be."

Shortly after, Port walked past the 7ft first year and nodded in affirmation, as if to say 'she's all yours'. Ruby went around to Weiss, who was staring at the horizon.

"Weiss?" she asked, remaining a few feet behind her, "Do you mind coming back to the dorm, I would like to discuss a training regime."

Weiss turned round to face her team leader, "Why?" she just asked,

"Well, I'm going to be honest, out of breath after dueling with a Boarbatusk for about a minute, your stamina could use a little work." Weiss looked at the ground in silent agreement, "Everyone has things they need to work on, so do you want to come and join us?"

There was a long pause, before Weiss looked up at Ruby, "Yeah, sure, let's go." She said smiling.


	6. Chapter 5: An exercise in trust

**Heya! I just want to say that I've ment to put a small overview over each chapter so far,but I just kept forgetting. So starting now, I will try to add one to every chapter, and address any common issues people have with my work, so reviews are always welcome. I will try to reply to each of them personally, but if I can't it will usually be beacise of school work and I will get to it as soon as I can.**

 **So in this chapter Ruby gives her idea of a training regime and puts it in place, while Blake learns a bit about her past. It's slightly shorter than usual, but by the time I realsied, it would he hard to make it the same length as the others. Be assured though it isn't me slacking over the Holidays. So have a happy hoilday and see you in the new year!**

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"Wait, you want us to do what!?" Came Weiss's voice as Ruby finished reading out the draft she had made last night.

"Get up at six for a half-hour jog around the school before a half hour sparring session followed by some general exercises, push-ups, sit-ups, planking etc. All in time for 8am, leaving you enough time to get showered, dressed, and ready for class." Ruby repeated as her Teammates looked at her in disbelief.

"You can't expect us to do all that in the mornings." The heiress protested.

"I did so, getting up even earlier every day, from the age of 7." Ruby stated flatly.

"Yes but were not super soldiers!"

"I wasn't augmented until I was fourteen- err, 6 years ago. After that, I did even more intense training."

"Why is this necessary?"

"Because when it comes down to it, will the Grimm care if you're weak, tired, or need to catch your breath?" Ruby said avoiding the true answer. "I still get up at 5 to go for an hour jog, followed up by a thousand sit-ups, push-ups, and plank for as long as I can in the mornings. This is an easy workout compared to my training." Blake just sighed as she looked at the list in front of them, it wasn't an overly hard workout, yes, it would be hell for the first few weeks probably, but the benefits would be clearly seen. "Also," Ruby continued, "I think being in top form for the Vytal festival would be good, no?"

Weiss glared at Ruby for a moment before giving in, "Fine, I'll do it." She looked at the list, "What is the other thing you wanted to do? Get 'sidearms?' What are those?"

"A secondary weapon, aside from Yang, most of your weaponry is short ranged, and even the shots from Yang's gauntlets are slow moving, so having a secondary would be good for fighting at long range. Not to mention what happens if your disarmed, not all Grimm are easily fought with hand to hand." She explained, before displaying a few weapons she had used, namely the MA5B Assault Rifle, the BR55 Battle rifle, the M7 Submachine Gun, and the M392 Designated Marksman Rifle. She ran through each of their settings, magazine sizes, ranges, accuracy and power, and gave the group a choice of each.

After a few minutes of studying each, Blake was the first to answer, "I think I'll take the SMG." she said, studying it, quickly Ruby pulled out a real version and let Blake test it in her hands, "Yeah, I like this." She confirmed, handing the weapon back to Ruby. She sent it back to where it belonged and made a note on her Tac pad about Blake's order.

"Okay, what else do we want?" Ruby questioned.

"I think the DMR would suit me best." Weiss rationalised, as Ruby got one out and handed it to her, it was heavy in her grip, and she held it sloppily, considering she had almost always used her rapier in battle, but she nodded in approval, "I'll take it."

Yang took the longest, pondering over her options, before pointing at the assault rifle.

"Can I try that one?" The Spartan nodded as she got the gun out of the pocket dimension. She held it up, feeling the grip, and flexed on the trigger. Ruby had made sure the safety was on so she didn't accidently fire it.

"Yeah, I like this one." She finally answered, handing the gun back to her sister who made a note along with everyone else's.

"We can go into town and get them ordered over the weekend." Ruby stated, and everyone else nodded, "Now, I advise you get some sleep, you've got the beginning of a lot of long days ahead of you." And everyone proceeded to start getting ready for bed.

Ruby lay in bed as she lifted her dog tags into the moonlight. She had forgotten about her own, but with her time on Remnant, she had decided to move all of Noble Team's tags to it so she could safeguard them. She sighed, before letting them fall down to her chest and rolling over.

Unknown to her, Blake had been watching her staring sorrowfully up at the small metal plates, with the aid of her Faunus-enhanced night vision, she could make out the engravings.

Reading each one she began to get a sense of dread, Carter: Noble 1, Catherine: Noble 2, Emile: Noble 4, Jorge: Noble 5, and Ruby: Noble 6.

Something told her that something less than favourable happened to her last team, and that Ruby wouldn't want to talk about it. So that's how it was left, 5 names on some plates of metal, one charred, two stained in blood, and the other two in relatively good condition, though Noble 3's fate was still a mystery.

She decided to bring it up with the rest of her Teammates later.

Team WBY woke to the alarm beeping relentlessly at a painfully loud volume as they all groaned and got up. Ruby was, of course, already dressed and ready to go, having done her hour jog and ready for more.

"C'mon, let's go!" Ruby basically chanted getting everyone to commit to getting up,

Weiss groaned. "Why did I agree to this again?"

"Vytal Festival." Came her reply. Blake exited the bathroom in some old clothes that would be suitable for a workout.

Once everyone was ready, they all stood outside in the cool air… ...and were shivering as Ruby gave directions for stretches to limber up. "You'll warm up once we get moving, let's go." She led the jog round the school, moving at Weiss's pace since she was the slowest. They managed to do a lap of the school in about 10 minutes, but she got short of breath after another quarter-lap. They took a small break and waited for Weiss to get her breathing rate under control.

"Why...?" she asked between gasps for air,

"To improve your stamina, let's go. I want to get at least 2 laps done before sparring." She shook herself before having to jog a bit faster to catch up to the others.

Once that was done, there was a 5 minute break before Ruby set up the first bout of spars. The rules were simple: no weapons or Semblances allowed, Aura would be used to avoid any unfortunate accidents.

Yang went up against Blake while Ruby taught Weiss the basics of hand-to-hand. "That's good," she congratulated as Weiss had finished a move that had been taught. "Now, I'm only going to be dodging, no blocks, see if you can land a hit on me. If we can do that, I'll call you off early and we can go to the rest of the exercises."

Weiss was thoroughly exhausted now, but she knew that if she wanted to progress, she would have to push herself. Dripping with sweat, her hair falling out of the ponytail she had put it in not half an hour before, she lunged at Ruby, practicing the moves that she had taught her. She started with a few punches to either side; left, right, left, then swung her legs around, attempting to catch her off guard. None of it worked, of course, as Ruby dodged each attempt. This went on for about 10 minutes, Weiss lunging at Ruby with various forms of attacks, and Ruby dodged them until she caught a fist. "Okay, that's enough. Take a break, then we're moving onto sit-ups.

Weiss looked at her other teammates, too tired to say a word. They were finally beginning to look a bit like her. Blake was covered in a thin veil of sweat with Yang not far behind. Their leader, of course, still wasn't short of breath. If they were still unsure about the strength of a Spartan, they knew now. "Hey... Guys...?" Blake said to them, between gasps, before taking a swig of water, "There's... Something... I'd like... To talk to you... About later," Another gulp of water, "Without Ruby." They both nodded as Weiss gestured for the water bottle.

After about 100 sit-ups, push-ups of every variety, and planking for as long as they could, Weiss lasting about 30 seconds, Blake 1 minute, and Yang, able to stay up for close to 5, they all plodded back to the dorm to shower. It was now 7:40, they had 80 minutes to get 4 people showered, dressed, and in their first class. Not exactly a tight schedule, but not a very lenient one either. While Ruby was in the shower, everyone else had gotten ready, so Blake took this opportunity to discuss what she had seen the previous night.

"I think I know why she's doing this." She began as they double checked their bags, "Pushing us, I mean. last night she held up a series of metal plates and I could make out what had been stamped on them. I think she lost her last team,"

"Why would you think that?" Weiss asked curious,

"Well, the military use metal plates on chains to identify soldiers right?"

She nodded, "Well these ones had some names, followed by a number and Noble 1-6, though 3 was missing."

"What were they?" Yang asked, meaning the names and numbers

Blake listed off the 5 names and serial numbers as well as their Noble number, "I think Ruby was the most recent member, considering she was Noble 6,"

"We can't tell her we know this, she would only feel worried or pressured," Weiss stated as the others nodded in agreement. Just then Ruby exited the bathroom with the towel over her shoulder, "Ready to go?" she asked, as everyone gathered their things and Ruby set the towel on the radiator, they then left for their first class of the day, it was going to be a very long day.


	7. Chapter 6: A rude awakening

**WOOOP Happy new year everyone! Gonna get this chapter out because I im starting school again next week, aand I've got a GCSE module as soon as I get back, (High school diploma for all you Americans) so _yay._ This is quite a short chapter, basically rounding off the Jaundence ark quickly as Ruby smacks some sense into Cardin, litterally. Next chapter is when this will to jump away from the origional Canon, more than it already has anyway. But! That has uet to come, in the meen time, enjoy this short chapter i managed to get done between chaotic holiday shenanigans and revision, reviews are always accepted, (it would greatly help for my English GCSE as part of it is a creative writing peice.) Caio!**

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It had been about a week since Ruby had instituted the new training program, and, while it had been hell, the effects were starting to show. everyone had now improved their stamina as well as overall fighting skills. Weiss insisted that hand to hand was unnecessary, while Ruby insisted that it was, but they were slowly getting better. Right now, the four were sitting in combat class with Professor Goodwitch, as Jaune battled the head of Team CRDL, Cardin Winchester.

He was failing miserably.

After the match concluded, with Cardin as the winner, Goodwitch scolded Jaune for his lack of observational skills of his aura bar in his scroll. The class was then dismissed and Ruby decided to offer the leader of JNPR some lessons. So her and the rest of her team met up with them during lunch.

"So, there we were. In the middle of the night." Nora was saying.

"It was Day," Ren interjected,

"We were surrounded by Ursai."

"They were Beowolves,"

"Dozens of them!" She exclaimed, standing up,

"Two of them." He sighed,

"But they were no match, and in the end, Ren and I took them down, and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs,"

"She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now."

"Jaune? Are you Okay?" Pyrrha asked as their team leader was poking at his food.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, why?" Came his reply as he set down the fork.

"You seem, a little... Off." Ruby replied, "Is it Cardin?"

"Who? Oh, Cardin Winchester?" he began, in a very obviously forced voice, "Psh, not him, nah... He just likes to mess around, y'know?" There was some laughter as they turned round to see Cardin, and his team, picking on a rabbit Faunus girl.

Ruby, got up and yelled at them, "Hey, back off!"

"Oh yeah? What you going to do about it? You just think that since your a little tall, your going to scare me?" He mocked, as Ruby's eye twitched. As ironic as it seemed, she hated racists. Especially those who picked on the innocent.

She got up, walked towards where CRDL was sitting, and just punched Cardin square in the face, the blow sent him flying back over a few tables and into the wall behind him. As he looked, dazed, at his assailant. the rest of his team looked at The Spartan in fear. She glared at each of them in turn, causing them to run off. Whether it was to help their leader or for their own safety, she didn't care which. "Sorry about that, are you okay?" She asked the Faunus, who was now staring up at her in wonder, "Y- yeah, thanks." she said, smiling.

"No problem. Names Ruby. If those dickheads ever bother you again, just let me know, I'll knock some sense into them."

"Velvet," she replied, "And again, thank you."

She turned and went to re-join the conversation as they were listing off the many times Cardin had picked on Jaune over the past week. "I didn't land too far from the school." Jaune was protesting over the listing off that Cardin had launched Jaune in his locker, out of the school.

"Jaune you know if you ever need help you can just ask." Pyrrha stated, putting her hand on his arm.

"Ooh!" Nora exclaimed, "We'll break his legs!"

"Not to be a buzz kill, but I think he's gonna be out of commission for a while anyway..." Ruby grinned, as they all turned their heads to face Cardin, who was still in the wall, no one bothering to help him.

"You're not worried about getting in trouble?" Blake asked her team leader nervously.

"Realistically, who is going to tell on me? He sure isn't going to a teacher about it. I know his type, won't want to tell on us for fear of being presented as weak." Ruby reasoned with the group, who all nodded.

"C'mon," Jaune almost groaned, "We're going to be late for class." Jaune said as they finished up and headed off to get changed back into uniforms.

"Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution, more commonly known as the Faunus War, Humankind was quite, quite adamant about centralising the Faunus population in Menagerie." They were in history class, as Dr Oobleck was speeding round his lecture hall faster than most Spartans, he was very insistent on being called Dr over Professor. He was a very rugged teacher considering he had a loose tie, shirt untucked and with its top button undone and uncombed, wryly green hair, and thick spectacles.

He took a sip of whatever was in his mug, because it certainly wasn't coffee, before zipping round in front of his desk and continuing.

"Now! While most of this might seem like ancient history to many of you, it is imperative to remember that these are relatively recent events." Ruby, along with a course in Grimm studies, Aura focusing and semblance wielding, all of which she excelled at, had gotten an accelerated course in Faunus studies, so she knew a decent bit about them. their night vision, and different animalistic traits. She had even taken it upon herself to look at the Faunus War, a peaceful civil rights movement turned violent due to constant oppression, not unlike the women's civil rights movement in the 1920s, which she had learned about during her Spartan training as to look at possible terrorist attack targets.

"Why, the, repercussions can still be seen to this day!" Oobleck continued, "Now, have any among you been subjugated or discriminated against, due to your Faunus heritage?" he asked as many of the Faunus in the room raised their hands. Ruby also noticed, from the seat above below her, that Blake's bow twitched and her hands stirred, the movements were too small to be caught by a normal person, but Ruby was far from normal. She filed it away for later as she turned her attention back to the class.

"Dreadful. Simply Dreadful. Remember students, it is precisely this kind of ignorance that breeds violence." Another sip from his mug, "I mean, I mean, look what happened with the White Fang!" He continued to zoom around the classroom, going to the other side of the lecture hall in a split second, "Now, which one of you young scallions can tell me what many theorists believe to be the turning point in the third year of the war?" Ruby and Weiss both raised their hands, "Yes, Miss Schnee."

"The Battle of Fort Castle." Was her smug answer,

"Precisely! And, who can tell me what advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune's forces?" it was at this point the remaining members of CRDL, who had been picking on the rest of the class in their leaders absence, finally been taken to the infirmary, flicked a piece of paper onto Jaune's head, who had been sleeping through the lesson. This caused him to jolt awake, "Huh wha-?" he murmured,

"Mr Ark! Finally contributing to class I see, what is the answer to the question?"

Despite trying to many of his friends sign the answer to him, Jaune got the question wrong, prompting everyone to laugh.

"Very funny Mr Ark, see me after class please." He turned his attention, "Miss Rose, seeing as you raised your hand for the last question, do you mind telling us the answer?"

"Yes sir, the advantage the Faunus had over the General was night-vision. General Lagune was inexperienced and so tried to lead a surprise attack at night. His forces were wiped out due to the natural edge the Faunus had."

"Absolutely wonderful, thank you Miss Rose," it was at this point that the bell rang, "Please look over your notes, pages 20 to 49, class dismissed."

RWBY left the lecture hall and headed towards their own dorm, where Ruby then decided she should finally go talk to Jaune, seeing as there probably wouldn't be another opportunity. After telling the rest of her team what she was up to, she headed down to the hall and back to Oobleck's lecture hall, as Jaune is probably only just getting back. "I wasn't really accepted into Beacon." She heard Jaune's voice as she neared a balcony.

"W-what do you mean?" Pyrrha's voice also came, as she stopped to listen to the conversation.

"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't take any test, I didn't earn my spot at this academy!" he continued. "I lied. I got my hands on some fake transcripts and I lied."

"What? But... Why?"

"Because this is what I've always wanted to be! My father, my grandfather, and his father before him were all warriors, they were all heroes! I wanted to be one two, I was just never good enough."

"Then let me help you-"

"I don't want help, I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!"

"Jaune..."

"I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, stuck in the tree, while his friends fight for their lives, don't you understand?! If I can't do this in my own... Then what good am I?" there was a pause, "Just leave me alone, ok?"

"If... That's what you think is best." Pyrrha then walked off the balcony and saw Ruby, she gave a nervous smile up to her as she fast walked back to her dorm.

Ruby then went to the balcony to see Jaune overlooking the rest of the campus. "Jaune, I couldn't help but hear what was being over said there." He turned round and looked at her nervously,

"Heh, you won't tell right?" he chuckled nervously, feeling dwarfed by Ruby's height.

"Oh no, I won't tell, I've got a number of secrets that I am taking to the grave, there's no problem there, but let me give you some advice,"

He gulped. "1, if I learned anything while I was off world, its that teamwork matters. I may be a lone wolf, but that because my missions required me to be, you aren't pathetic if you need someone to take off the load from time to time. 2, next time you spill your secrets, make sure it's not over the school bully's dorm room, your lucky he's in the infirmary. And 3, you are going to go back to Pyrrha, tell her you changed your mind, and show up in the courtyard for 0630 tomorrow, because starting now, your joining my team in their morning exercises, got it?" he nodded meekly, before Ruby turned round and left the distressed boy on the roof.


	8. Chapter 7 Dark memories

**So, Chapter 7, The team finaly confront Runy about her past, and well, it goes how you might expect. Thank you guys so much for the follows and favorites, it's nice to know I'm writing something that acctually entertains people, so keep em coming, reviews are also always accepted.** **I have a big thing coming up, some of you guys may not like, but its something I planed to dp since the beginning anyways, so, its happening. But just so you know for scale wise, its over the Winter break between the first and second semester, so look forward until then, see you next chapter! Oh also, since it hasnt been put in yet because i keep forgetting** **:**

 **I do not ownthese characters or designs, Halo is owned by 343 Industries, And RWBY is property of RoosterTeeth.**

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Team RWBY were sitting in their dorm just after a field trip to Forever Fall forest, Ruby was leaning against the wall, flipping a coin and catching it, before weaving it between her fingers skilfully, while the rest sat on the beds.

"So, Blake, you wanted to ask me something?" Ruby asked, as she nodded. Blake now thought it was time to comfort Ruby about her past, they would need to know if they were going to work as a team.

"Yes, I was wondering if you would be willing to tell us about your past. Before you came back to Remnant, I mean." The coin stopped going back and forth in her fingers, she sighed, "Well, I was going to have to tell you eventually, so I might as well tell you now, come on, we need to go somewhere private."

"But we're already in our dorm." Weiss began to protest, before Yang set a hand in her shoulder, "She's worried about eavesdroppers, if what she's told me is any indication, she really doesn't want anyone else to know."

They left campus and he added into an old part of Vale, full of old houses. "Found this place one day when I was exploring before Beacon started." Ruby explained, going into one of the abandoned buildings. Inside was old, musky and falling apart. The rest of the group looked around in disgust, and slight wonder as Ruby moved towards a pile of steel crates, equipping her armor. "Those must weigh a ton on their own, let alone what they're filled with." Weiss began, "Even with that armor, you can't-" She was cut off by Ruby lifting 2 crates, one in each hand like it was a wicker basket. A few moments later, a trapdoor was uncovered and Ruby lifted it, gesturing inside.

Inside, the basement was quite expansive, having a few beds, some cupboards, a fridge, sink it was basically a house in one room. "Fallout bunker in case of the worst," Ruby explained, "Spent the rest of my free time building this place, stocked with enough supplies so a family of 4 could live here comfortably for a few years if necessary. We'll be private here," she said as she closed the hatch. She took off her helmet and set it in the counter before unequipping her armor and taking her Tac pad off, setting it beside the helmet, "Now, you want to know about my past, I have to tell you one thing. It. Is. Bloody. I am a Spartan III, a group of 6 year olds who were orphaned by a amalgamation of alien races known simply as The Covenant, we were specifically built, and I mean built, to be suicide soldiers. Teams of usually one or two people sent in to do more damage than the average marine, but not expected to return.

My abilities, my Aura and Semblance, were picked up by ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and they thought me too good an asset to be expendable, so I received special training, became a member known as the 'head-hunters'." Everyone gulped at that name, "We were the best of the best, probably even rivalling our predecessors, who were good on the battlefield, but too expensive and selective to have a functioning army.

ONI would dispatch us to take out high value targets, insurrectionists, terrorist organisations, major figureheads within the Covenant, I myself was called on several occasions by the Head of ONI, as his personal Grim Reaper, I am one of two members in the entire UNSC, a interstellar military consisting of probably billions of troops, to have the designation of a hyper-lethal vector.

If ONI wanted, entire governments could fall at my hand. So when I show you what I am going to show you, take heed of what have told you, and what I mean when you do not want the Covenant here." She let that sink in for a moment.

They had all paled, Weiss finding it hard to believe what she was hearing, Yang at a loss at what Ruby must have been through, and Blake shuddering at the thought of how many people she had killed to out match almost all of a civilisation in her deadliness. The Spartan III set her Tac pad on the counter as a screen projected onto the wall. "I will be showing you the Battle for Reach, where I was stationed before coming here, from my arrival to my departure. This is what I dealt with in a day to day basis."

 **The screen started to play as Ruby looked down at it, wiping the screen once before flipping it around and putting it on her head, she was in a car-like vehicle with a machine gun mounted in the back, being driven along on a dirt track. Once it arrived at its destination, Ruby got out and walked towards the structure nearby, inside, she was greeted by a man wearing similar looking armor to her, but with different colourings and design of the titanium plating. His helmet was different too, a large glass visor with a crude carving of a skull etched into the glass. He was sharpening his combat knife as he sat. There was a conversation going on in the background, but before she could take another step, a bionic arm came in front of her, as a woman with short hair, and the same kind of armor stepped in front of her.** **"Commander," she said in a thick accent that was unfamiliar, the man at the console, and the much bulkier man turned to face Ruby, all wearing different variants of the armor, "So that's our new number 6." the bulky man said, in a gruff voice.** **"Kat, you read her file?" the man with the skull helmet asked,** **"Only the parts that weren't covered in black ink." Came the short reply, the commander turned back to the console.** **"Anyone came responsibility sir?" He asked as the reply came over radio.** **"ONI thinks it could be the local insurrection. 5 months ago, they pulled a similar job like this in harmony, get a relay to get our eyes and ears down then stole two frigates from dry-Dock. That can't happen here, Reach it too damn important. I want that relay back online Noble 1."** **"Sir, consider it done."** **"Then I'll see you in the other side, Holland out." The transmission ended as the commander turned round to Ruby.** **"Lieutenant," he called out.** **"Commander, Sir." Ruby replied as she walked up to him.** **"I'm Carter, Noble team's leader. that's Kat, Noble 2, Emile and Jorge, 4 and 5. You're riding with me, Noble 6." He had gestured to the skull helmet as Emile, and the bulky one as Jorge, as they exited the building towards some hornets, small basically bullhead frames, with two guns on either side. "Not going to lie to you Lieutenant." Carter continued putting on his helmet as they walked, another member with a large sniper rifle joining them. "You're about to step into some shoes the rest of the squad would rather leave unfilled. Me? I'm just happy to have Noble back up to full strength. Just one thing, I've seen your file, even the parts the ONI sensors didn't want me to, I'm glad to have your skill set."** **there was a pause as the sniper, Carter and Ruby got on board the Falcon, and he gestured to the pilot to lift off. "But, we're a team, that lone wolf stuff, stays behind, clear?"** **"Crystal, sir." Ruby replied, the sniper looked at her finally,** **"Welcome to Reach." Is all he said as they took off.**

Ruby paused the video there and gestured to the sniper. "Jun, Noble 3, since you didn't get an introduction." The others turned to face her, "Any questions so far?"

"What are the Insurrectionists?" Blake asked,

"Terrorists." came Ruby's reply. "Like the White fang, but way worse. Instead of fighting against racism and for equal rights, the Insurrectionists seek to topple the United Earth Government. They preform terrorist attacks, bombings in the outer colonies, steal weapons and machines, there's even suicide bombers sent out to just blow up a bunch of people."

"And the armor you're all wearing?" Weiss asked,

"MJOLNIR Mark-V Powered Assault armor, a suit of power armor that cost the same as a light frigate, allowing breathing in space, has rechargeable energy shielding, boosts your abilities and reaction times. All while providing enough protection to fall from orbit and just walk it off, with a little assistance. However, if we were to somehow get our hands on more sets, do not try them on unless your augmented, like me. They make you move at such a rate that it's too much strain on your body and it shatters your bones, crushing you to death in the suit." Ruby explained as the others gave her horrified glances,

"I was fine, the Spartan II's tested it beforehand, Halsey wouldn't have given it to us if it wasn't safe for us, she's the head of research at ONI." they maintained their expression as they turned to face the screen

Ruby finally ended the show of the Fall of Reach, as the camera was focused on the lightbulb-orb that was Soverign Marytr,

"After the Augmentations," Ruby was saying, "He suggested I use the apparent portal network to get off-world, and after realising that it was the same way I got here, I asked for this planet, and… here I am, Ozpin found me, we struck a deal and now I'm your team leader."

"Is this why your pushing us so hard?" Weiss, looking upto her team leader with some concern.

"Kind of, yes. But also I just want the best of you. I guess this is my military upbringing for you, but I don't want to see your potential waisted, y'know, it just feels... Wrong."

"Are you worried about them finding Remnant?" Blake asked, Ruby noticing her bow was drooping slightly,

"Again, yes, as you saw we were utterly devastated on Reach. Granted, that was the biggest Covenant force we ever encountered, but with the tech and weapons you have, even with Aura and Semblances, they would slaughter you." Ruby sighed. "I wanted to find a new life, but my old one is still haunting me." She picked up the Tac pad and attached it to her wrist, "The Covenant can do precise slip-space jumps, something that was previously thought impossible. They have highly advanced weaponry, tech and force capabilities, the only reason the UNSC stood a chance was the Spartan program. If they come here, even if its one or two carriers, unless we can find a way to get up into atmosphere, we're toast."

"Does anyone else know this?" Blake followed up.

"Only you, I told Ozpin about the Covenant, but I still don't trust him enough to tell him everything, he's hiding something himself. It's hidden well, but after the amount of capture and interrogate missions I've been on over the years, I can tell."

Blake nodded solemnly, as Ruby got up, "Well, we should probably head back, it's getting late."

"What time is it?" Weiss questioned,

"20 hundred." came the reply,

"Eight o'clock! We've been in here for 4 hours!"

"Yup," came the Spartans reply, "Now come on, don't want to be caught past curfew."


	9. Chapter 8: A confession

**New chapter! Meeting new people, and Blake has something to say, how will it affect the team? Thanks again guys, for the follows and favorites, it means alot. Im publishing this, at a scrabble torunament my dad dragged me to, and the new episode for RWBY just came out and I dont have my headphonses its just uuuh, but anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter** **, also 100 followers! I almost forgot to mention yay!**

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It had been a few days since the team had watched the Fall of Reach, and after that, they had been more motivated during training, trying to meet Ruby's standard so they wouldn't let her down. Yang most of all, while her sister was older, had much more experience and ability, she still felt it was her duty to protect her. As a result, the training had gotten harder, doing an hour run, sparring more vigorously, 200 of sit-ups, push-ups, and practicing semblance use, and fighting each other until their aura was broken, and still going on, albeit, less deadly strikes and blows were made.

They were now sleeping. Well, all but Ruby, she was yet again looking at her tags when a voice reached her ears.

"Ruby… You awake?" Blake asked, looking over at her, Ruby turned to face her, eyes seemingly glowing in the dark.

"Yeah, why?" She asked, letting her tags fall to her chest.

"There's, something I want to tell you that I'm not quite happy with the rest fo the team knowing, could we go outside?"

"Yeah, give me a moment."

They headed into the courtyard in front of the statue of a Huntsman and Huntress, with a Beowolf beneath them, almost cowering.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Ruby asked, folding her arms and leaning on the short wall encompassing the statue. Blake hesitated, before taking off her bow to reveal a pair of small, black cat ears.

"I… Used to be a member of the White fang," She admitted, "Back when they were peaceful, my father founded the group, and I got involved in any way I could, every protest, every rally. But, as my dad stepped down, a more violent leader took his place, and started the violent attacks." Ruby listened intently to Blake's confession, nodding slightly every now and then, "I used to keep saying to myself that this was what we wanted, this is what we were working for. But when we were hijacking a train, the partner I was working with had no regard for the passengers. He was going to blow them up when we were supposed to just steal one car. I knew then that it was too far, so I cut the car he was on, and just left him, ran off and applied for Beacon."

Ruby maintained a stoic expression before simply stating, "I knew." Given Blake's confused expression, she explained, "Since I got here, I've been on an accelerated course to catch up with the rest of you. Grimm studies, Aura and Semblance control, Faunus studies, just to name a few of my classes. That included the White Fang, you really must have done it in a hurry, because you didn't even try to hide your name. When I looked and found its founder was Ghira Belladonna, it all fit into place."

Blake's ears flattened, as she realised the stupidity of it all, of course she would know. She probably dealt with much more crazy things in her time with the UNSC.

"Well, could you not tell the rest of the team? I can guess how Weiss will react, and we don't really need that."

"No, we don't. But keeping your identity a secret like that can't go on. You won't be able to hide it forever, and when she does find out, it would be best if you told her instead of her finding out on her own, it will be easier to accept."

Blake nodded in response, reapplying her bow to hide the ears. "Right, I'll keep that in mind."

The next day, Team RWBY headed into Vale as their weapon orders were ready. Inside the weapons shop, was a scruffy man about 6'8" with a stubble beard, big, calloused hands and a pair of welding goggles on his forehead. He's spotted Ruby as she came in with the rest of your team, "Ah, yes I'll get your order now." he went into the store behind the counter and pulled out 4 guns, 2 SMGs, a DMR, and an assault rifle, "These were very interesting orders, you obviously thought alot about the design, it's not often you have just plain guns anymore. I could whip up something at a discount for you." he offered, handing Ruby the weapons.

"No, I'm fine, these are good for the meantime." She replied, and then handed the weapons to their respective owners.

"You sure? Even if it's just the base design, I can do swords, daggers, hammers, scythes, you name it!" the shopkeep listed off enthusiastically, to which Ruby raised an eyebrow.

"I might take the dimensions for a battle scythe, do you have a set of blueprints?"

"Yeah, sure, just give me a sec." he went into the back and after a minute came out with an A3 roll of paper. He set it on the counter. "That will be 50 lien." Ruby handed the cards over and then took the roll, putting it under the crook of her arm as she waved farewell and headed out the store with the rest of her team.

"Why the scythe blueprints?" Weiss asked the question the rest of the team was thinking as they walked.

"I want to build a weapon with a scythe in it, like how you made yours" She explained, "I've always liked scythes, so much so that I pretty much begged my training instructors to teach me how to use one, but since they weren't standard military weapons, I haven't really used one. The only time being when I was caught on an old farm with no ammo. I found an old farmer's scythe and went to town on the Covenant forces there. I wasn't known as the Red Reaper for nothing." The team shuddered at the thought.

Yang tried to steer the topic somewhere else. "So why did you want to bring us to the docks Weiss?" they were now, in fact, at the docks of Vale just as a large white ship was pulling in.

"I've heard that students from Mistral are arriving for the Vytal Festival today, and as a representative of Beacon, I feel that it is my solemn duty to welcome them to this fine kingdom." she explained, before Blake rolled her eyes,

"She wants to spy on the competition,to gain the upper hand in the tournament." She said bluntly.

"You can't prove that!" The Heiress quickly retorted.

They were walking on when the site of a broken shop caught their attention. Upon walking up to it, Ruby asked the police officers what happened.

"Robbery," he replied flatly, "second Dust shop to be hit this week, this place is turning into a jungle."

"They left all the money again!" A second officer called out from inside.

"Yeah, just doesn't make a lick a' sense. Who needs that much Dust?"

"I donno, ya know what I mean?"

"You thinking maybe the White fang?"

"I'm thinking we don't get paid enough."

As they left the police officers to bicker over their wages, Ruby and Blake shared a worried glance. "The White Fang?" Weiss began, "I don't understand how they could think this is okay. I mean, they are nowhere near as bad as the Covenant, but how could they think that what they're doing is right?"

"They didn't used to be violent you know." Blake replied, "In the beginning, they just protested peacefully."

"And how do you know that?" Weiss asked, eyes narrowing.

Blake looked around nervously. "I-I grew up near where they protested frequently, it became a regular occurrence, almost every Friday." She stuttered.

Weiss continued to look at Blake, but before she could question her further, a shout from the docks caught RWBY's attention.

"Hey! Stop that Faunus!" they rushed to see where it was coming from, as they saw a blonde monkey faunus with an unbuttoned white shirt and denim shorts, jump off the boat and onto a lamp post. A moment later, the cops were there trying to get him down. Instead of being caught, the faunus just threw the banana peel he had in one of their faces and ran off, passing the team. Unbeknownst to the others, Ruby and Blake saw him winking at the cat Faunus as if in slow mo before running off.

"Well Weiss, you wanted to see the competition." Yang remarked. "And there it goes."

"Quick!" Weiss called out. "We must observe him!" They all ran of in the same direction as the mysterious monkey Faunus, Weiss going on ahead.

This led her to collide into someone and fall to the pathement, "No! He got away!"

"Uuh Weiss?" Yang nervously called out to her.

The heiress looked at the brawler, then to where she was pointing, which turned out to be the girl smiling on the ground. Reflexively, Weiss jumped back up, brushing herself off.

"Sal-u-tations!" the girl said, waving from her position on the floor. She was about 5'5" with a ginger Bob, and a beige and black outfit with green highlights. She smiled up at the group and as Ruby looked into her green eyes, she noticed they looked like the aperture of a camera.

"Um, Hey there." Ruby replied

"Are… You okay?" Yang asked

"I'm wonderful!" The girl replied. "Thank you for asking."

The team looked at each other for a moment, "Do you… Want to get up?" Yang continued.

There was a pause, "Yes." then in one fluid motion she pushed herself up onto her feet by pushing of the ground with her hands. All but Ruby took a reflexive step back.

"My name is Penny, it's a pleasure to meet you!" She introduced herself in a very enthusiastic voice.

"Hey, I'm Ruby,"

"I'm Weiss,"

"Blake." The three of them replied in turn as Yang then commented,

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" only to be elbowed by Blake,

"Oh, I'm Yang."

"It's a pleasure to meet you!" Penny repeated.

"You already said that." Weiss replied,

"So I did!"

"Well, sorry for running into you." Weiss waved as the others turned to walk away.

"Take care, pal." Ruby also said in passing as she turned to join her friends.

"She was… Weird." Yang commented as Weiss returned to search for the monkey Faunus.

Penny suddenly appeared in front of the team, however, as if she teleported,

"What did you call me?" she questioned,

"Oh, I'm sorry," Yang apologised. "I didn't realise you heard me,

"No, not you…" she walked past everyone to Ruby, looking up at her. "You."

"Uhh…" Ruby began

"You called me 'Pal,' that word is synonymous with 'friend'! Am I really your friend?" Penny asked, looking desperate.

Ruby looked over at the rest of her team, who all had looks of concern on their faces, but she figured, 'why not, if she turns out to be a threat, she can easily be dealt with, though I'd rather not let it come to that.'

"Sure, why not?" she replied. The rest of her team gave her looks of 'what have you done?' as Penny leaped back and cheered, "Sen-sational!" She threw her hands into the air, "We can paint our nails, try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!" She listed off excitedly.

"I'm… not that kind of person Penny." Ruby nervously replied, realising quite what she had just gotten herself into.

Penny deflated as her new friend shot her down, but was revitalised as Yang asked, "So… What are you doing in Vale?"

"Oh, I'm here to fight in the tournament!" She cheered.

"Wait. Your fighting in the tournament?" Weiss asked to confirm,

"I'm combat ready!" Penny assured as she gave a salute.

"Forgive for saying, but you hardly look the part."

"Says the girl wearing a dress." Blake commented

"It's a combat skirt!" Weiss protested.

"Yeah, and things can be different than they seem," Ruby commented, still curiously looking at Penny.

"Wait a minute." Weiss realised, "If your here got the tournament, does that mean you know that Monkey Faunus?" she grabbed Penny by the shoulders, "Who is he?"

"The who?" she asked the Heiress

"The Faunus Stowaway! You must have seen him!" She said as she procured a silly sketch of him seemingly out of nowhere.

"I'm sorry, I didn't seem him, I was on a different part of the boat." Penny replied with a small hiccup.

Weiss scowled as she went into a small huff.

"Well, we'd love to stay and chat. But I think we should go." Ruby said, before making a subtle gesture to the rest of her team, "We have some stuff to get caught up on."

"Ok then, see you later!"

Back at Beacon, Ruby ran over how to use each of the weapons for her teammates as they went to try then at the firing range. Each of them had a practice go, and, having gotten used to their weapons, had a steadily increasing accuracy, as much as their weapons would allow them.

After they had all gone a few times practicing on the dummy, Blake called everyone's attention.

"I… have something to tell you." She muttered, "Could we go back to the room?"

Ruby smiled at her. "Sure, lets go." She said as Yang and Blake shared a look.

In the dorm room, they all were looking at Blake, Yang from her bed, Weiss by the door, and Ruby sitting in a chair; her arms on the back and her legs wrapped around it. There was a few moments of silence as Blake gathered up the courage to tell them, the only sound being the ticking of the clock on the wall.

She sighed, before speaking, "I'm… A Faunus," she began, before taking off her bow, revealing the cat ears. "My Dad founded the White Fang and thus I was pretty much signed up from birth. But as I said at the docks, they were peaceful back then. We did just take part in protests and rallies, nothing violent.

But as my Dad stepped down, a more violent leader took his place, and everyone agreed with her that the way they were moving was 'too slow'." She paused a moment. "We started vandalising shops that wouldn't serve us, assaulting people who opposed our protests. It began small, and gradually became worse. I would always try to assure myself that this was what was best. Then the killing started, I started doing less for them, but felt I couldn't quit because of who I was."

The room had gotten seemingly more sombre, as Yang and Weiss let the news sink in. "It was a month before Beacon started that I left. We were doing a raid on a Dust train, and Weiss I'm sorry about that." The Heiress in question had started to look angry. "But if I hadn't cut that car free, my partner would have mercilessly slaughtered everyone on board, I knew then I couldn't be a part of it any more, that it was going too far. So I ran and left for Beacon, the rest is history."

Weiss's expression faltered. "The White Fang I knew wouldn't do that sort of thing, they are slowly becoming more like the insurrectionists, and I don't want to see that happen."

There was silence as Weiss and Yang thought about what they heard. Blake's ears almost flush against her head in fear of their reactions.

"So your saying that by cutting that Dust car free, you saved my life?" the heiress asked the Faunus.

"Wait… You were on that car?"

"Yes, I was literally one car from the one you must have been on after cutting the Dust car off." She said, not exactly bitterly, but not in a nice tone either, just. Weiss.

"Then, yes, my partner had no regard for the passengers, when he told me his intentions I asked him about the passengers, and he just replied, 'what about them?'" Blake shuddered at the memory.

"Well… Thank you for that I guess…" Weiss said, offering her hand out to Blake. Who looked up in surprise, ears perking up. "Also, you suit having the bow off."

She averted her gaze at that. "I… I think I'm going to keep it on, while you guys are accepting, not many other humans are."

"True, but I doubt anyone is going to mess with us." Ruby grinned from her chair, "Not when you have a Spartan III on your side."


	10. Chapter 9 Back to Basics

**So, the raid at the docks; with Blake not running away, how will this change? Will they get caught by the police? Maybe... All I can say is a new chapter, more fun for RWBY, Please enjoy, Reviews are always accepted, and as always, thanksfor the favorites and follows.**

 **Edit: I realised that I hadn't selected all of the chapter when pasting from google docs, so theres a little more than last time** **. Also sorry this took so long, was on a ski trip to Norway with my folks, stopping at Amsterdam on the way, which has HUGE airport, we calculated about 30km2 or about 11.6 square miles fot the area it takes up.**

 **More notes at the bottom.**

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A few hours Blake's confession, the monkey Faunus met up with team RWBY in the courtyard. Seems he was searching for Blake. After introducing himself as Sun, it turned out that he was willing to help them on their little White Fang escapade. He even let them know that they would probably strike the shipment of Dust that came on the boat he was on. So a few days later, they were at the docks, lying on top of some conTainers. Ruby had her armor on and an SRS99 Anti-Material sniper rifle in hand, using the scope to eye out the operations of the White fang.

"There's about a dozen White Fang members," she told the others, "4 are moving crates from the conTainers to the Bullhead, and another 8 on guard. Though they're being led by a human, I believe it's Roman Torchwick, the wanted criminal."

"Wait, a human?" Blake asked, "The White Fang would never work with a human."

"Well, a human with a ginger fringe, white three piece suit, black bowler hat, and a cane is down there, directing the operation." was the Spartans reply, as Weiss looked through the scope of her DMR.

"She's right." was all the heiress said.

Blake looked down at the small dots of the figures below. "This isn't right, they would never work with a human, much less one like him." And without a second thought, she drew one of her blades, and ran off towards the thieves.

"Blake, wait!" Ruby called out, but she didn't listen.

Ruby cursed under her breath, "C'mon, gotta back her up." She said as she got up, and switched her sniper rifle for an M6G Magnum.

Down with the White Fang, Blake hid behind a conTainer near Torchwick, before racing up behind him and holding her blade to his throat.

"What the-?" the criminal jumped in surprise, "Oh for F-" but he was cut off as Blake called out

"Nobody Move!" as the White Fang members readied their weapons.

"Woah, Woah, take it easy there little lady…" Torchwick soothed as the White Fang members closed in.

Blake took off her ribbon and showed off her ears for all to see, well except Torchwick since he couldn't turn round, unless he wanted a slit throat. "Brothers of the White fang!" She began, addressing all of the grunts, "Why are you aiding this scum?" they began to lower their weapons.

But Torchwick chuckled, "Okay, didn't you get the memo?"

"What are you talking about?" Blake demanded, pressing her blade against his throat tighter. Meanwhile, Ruby and the rest of the team were sneaking up to the crates behind the group.

"The White Fang and I are going in on a joint business venture." The dapper criminal smugly replied, as Ruby activated the active camo ability, and began to sneak up on Torchwick, just in case he has a trick up his sleeve.

"Tell me what it is, or I'll put an end to your little operation." Blake taunted, pulling the blade tighter.

"I wouldn't call it a little operation," he quipped, as 2 Bullheads appeared, jets blasting the ground around them, distracting Blake.

At that moment, an explosion erupted at the feet of both of them. Blake managed to dodge out of the way as Torchwick tried to escape. He lifted up his cane, only for it to be batted out of his grasp and he was pushed against a container by seemingly nothing.

Ruby deactivated her camo as she raised her battle rifle to Torchwick head, "Stay where you are!" She threatened.

He chuckled as the grunts surrounded her. "I don't care what armor you're wearing miss cyborg, but you're outnumbered." he mused.

And that was when the rest of the team appeared, each taking a grunt by surprise and disarming them. More grunts piled out of the Bullheads, surrounding them as the previous grunts took up their weapons. Seeing the situation unfold on her motion tracker, Ruby quickly yelled- "Everybody jump!" as she exchanged her battle rifle for the gravity hammer and struck the ground.

Everyone in the team of vigilantes knew what would happen, well, except Blake, but she could react in time, and knew her leader well enough to follow. This was because, as Blake charged on ahead, Ruby devised a quick plan to lure them into a false sense of security, and let everyone know that she would use the gravity hammer.

Those unfortunate enough to not hear this conversation were thrown into the air by the strike, only alive because of their aura which was most likely shattered now anyways.

As they got back up, they were met with advances of the group, and, having taken a force of up to roughly 15 metric tons, nobody wanted to risk a fight. It was then another two Bullheads came around to face them, mounted with machine guns. They began firing at the students only to be split in half by an green energy beam.

Both groups looked up at one of the nearby buildings and saw Penny, with 10 levitating swords around her, as she jumped down. The White Fang members that had survived the crash got up, only to be rendered unconscious as the blades flew past them, chipping at their aura through several strikes.

Ruby almost was too entranced by this to notice Torchwick getting away. "Oh, no you don't!" She called out, and in a burst of rose petals caught up to him and put him in a fireman's carry.

"Put me down you oversized brat!" he cursed, trying to wriggle free. Ruby threw him at a shipping conTainer, making him collapse to the floor.

As the remaining Bullheads started to take off in a vain attempt to escape, Ruby jumped up 10 feet into one of the cargo bays. She then pulled the pilot out of his seat and landed the craft while Penny stuck her swords in the other and simply walked back, dragging the airship on seemingly invisible thread. She made a tugging motion as the pilot jumped, forcing the Bullhead into the ground and causing its whirl into destruction. The pilot was somehow fine, as he was just collapsed into unconsciousness, evident by the groaning after the flames died down.

Ruby walked up to Torchwick, who had now recovered from her throw, and was starting to see reason as it were. "Now, now, how about we settle this like disciplined people? We can split the Dust, or do you want money? I can give you plenty of Lien!" he stammered as his face paled. The Spartan just stood over the cowering figure as he thrust his hands out. Over hear sirens could be heard of the emergency services checking on the explosions, so she just rammed the but of the hammer she was brandishing into his head, knocking him out before going to the others.

"We should probably go, don't want to get caught playing hero without a huntsman license." The others nodded before she turned to Penny specifically. The person in question looked up at the giant suit of armor before it dematerialised and Ruby was looking at her with a stern expression on her face.

"I appreciate the help Penny, but… what are you doing here?" she asked, as the small girl in front of her looked up with a small smile.

"I heard the explosion and came to see what was going on. When I saw you and your friends in trouble, I knew I had to help." She stated simply.

Ruby pinched her nose and sighed, trying to think of something to say, but couldn't, so she just gestured to the rest of her group.

"Come on, let's go." and they went and left Penny to find her way home.

Back at their dormitory, having said goodbye to Sun and watching him run off back to wherever he was staying, they had only just closed the door before Yang let out a triumphant woop, fist pumping the sky. "Aw man, taking down a crime lord like Torchwick? Amazing!" Blake sat on her bed smiling slightly while Weiss had let out a sigh of relief as she smiled as well, Ruby leaned against the wall, arms crossed and a smug grin on her face.

"Yup, good stuff isn't it?" She chuckled to her sister.

"Can I try that Gravity Hammer you had? It looks amazing!" the brawler enthusiastically asked the Spartan.

"If you want. It is pretty heavy though, even by my standards."

She materialised it in her grasp and held it out for Yang to take up. She put both hands around it and got ready to take the weight. As she nodded, Ruby took her hands away, and the head plummeted, dropping onto the floor like it was made of lead.

Caught of guard by the weight of the hammer, Yang adjusted her grip, before heaving, making a sTained grunting sound as she slowly lifted the head above her own. It was rather amusing to watch really, her face turning redder and redder, but she eventually made it, and let the pommel fall to the floor, as she gasped for breath.

"How can you swing this thing?" she managed between breaths, as Ruby took the Brute weapon back from her.

"It's a lot of effort I'll give you that." She said as it was sent back to the pocket dimension. "But the armor, along with the boosters on the head of the hammer help with the swing."

She then turned to their Faunus, who while she had smiled when they came in, seemed to be lost in thought.

"You okay, Blake?" she asked, as the rest turned to face her.

"Hmm? Yeah, I'm fine." She murmured having her attention brought back to the others, "It's just, why would the White Fang, an organisation who despises humans go on a business venture to steal dust _with_ humans?" she had her bow back on, though now that they knew she was a Faunus, they could all tell that it had dropped at this.

"Hey, don't stress yourself about it." Weiss said, trying to cheer her up. "We stopped them, there's no point in stressing on something that won't happen right?"

Blake looked up to the Heiress who was giving a caring smile. She had come so far since the first day, when she despised anything that wasn't her or her

belongings.

"I guess so… It's just, who's to say it won't happen again?"

"Well, you said yourself, The White Fang despise Humans." Ruby reasoned, "Torchwick probably had something they desperately wanted, and since he's now behind bars, they've lost their advantage, so they will probably distrust deals with humans even more now." Blake nodded as she thought through it herself.

"Anyway…" Yang said, changing subject, "The Winter Break is right around the corner, I say this is a good time to reunite with Dad, don't you think sis?"

"Yeah!" Ruby perked up at the thought, "It will be nice to see him after all this time. I can just about remember him, seeing you jogged some more memories, where does he live?"

"Patch." Came the reply the Brawler gave her.

"Um…" Blake started, bushing slightly as she caught the other two's attention, "Do you mind if I come with you? It would be pretty lonely here otherwise, and Menagerie is a bit far for just the Winter break."

"Sure!" Yang cheered. "The more the merrier!" She then turned to face Weiss. "You want to come too?"

"Ah no, I'd love to, but Father has insisted that I go back to Atlas; when you're the Heiress to a multi-billion Lien company, you don't have very much free time, unfortunately." They all nodded in affirmation,

"Okay then." Yang nodded as they then went to bed, it had gotten quite late after all.

As the Winter break came around, Team RWBY bid their farewells, JNPR stayed at Beacon as Jaune needed to catch up on notes and resit tests, and the others didn't have much else to do, Weiss got on an airship bound for Atlas, and RBY got on another bound for Patch, the small island off the west coast of Vale.

Upon arrival, Yang instructed Ruby and Blake to wait by the exit of the station while she fetched her father.

When she came back, she was covering the eyes of a man in beige clothing, a waistcoat and shorts, with a steel shoulder plate and leather bracer on one arm, and a red bandana tied to his other. He had short, blond hair and a goatee with some stubble, along with a tattoo on his armored arm. He stumbled forward blindly, reaching out with his hands in case he bumped into someone.

"Okay, are we there yet?" he chuckled to his daughter.

"Almost." She replied, "Aand… Now!" She said as she took her hands away to let him see her teammates.

"Hi," he greeted sticking out his hand to each of them, "I'm Taiyang, Yang's father. She's told me a lot about you, well, as much as she can on the 5 minute walk here. And wow, she said that you were big, but I wasn't quite expecting you to be this tall, no offence."

"None taken." Ruby calmly replied as he took in the sight of her father.

"Now, while she did talk about you she didn't mention your names, may I ask what they are?" they both nodded as Blake went first.

"I'm Blake, Blake Belladonna, Yang's partner." She said as she shook his hand a second time.

"Belladonna?" he asked as a surprised expression came across his face,

"Is there something wrong?"

"No, no, it's just, I went to Signal with your mother, in fact she invited me to her wedding but I had an assignment at the time so I couldn't make it."

"Oh..." she replied, shock also spreading to her face.

"And you are?" Tai asked as he turned to face his second daughter.

"Ruby Rose." She said triumphantly, shaking his hand again like Blake.

 **A/N Since this is the start of the Winter break, I think here would be a good place to have a small Haitus while I write the Fall of Reach story, just to give y'all abetter idea about each of their reactions. I know, I know, Cliffhanger and ripping this from** **GreenTheRyno with a reach reaction and all that, but, my Ruby is different from theirs and so, different things happen, and I need to show that. It would just be wrong not to, and with school and whatnot, I can't guarentee upload dates, not to mentionwere planing on moving come September, so, we'll see how that goes.**


	11. Chapter 10: Family Reunion

**I'm Finally back! The long Haitus is over! Now you just have to deal with irregular uploads.**

 **So now The Fall of Reach is over, I can resume this, _and_ I managed to get a cool artist known as Foxtail to do some cover art. I found her on Halo amino under the same name, and her patrion is here: https//foxtails**

 **Big thanks to her for doing a great job on it.**

 **So in this Chapter Tai gets to hear what his 'youngest' has been up to the past '12' years, along with a surprise visit from everyone's favorite tall, dark, rugged Huntsman, and trying to convince _him_ of the events Ruby has gone to.**

 **Don't forget to review if you feel something could be made better, I'm always open to suggestions.**

 **As for the big thing I mentioned in last chapter, after some thinking, it needs to be tweaked a bit, so It's being pushed a little down the line.**

 **And with RWBY vol 7, particulalry Gravity (I'm on RT) I can see some interesting things happening when we fonally get there, so be sure to stay tuned until then.**

* * *

Tai froze up at the mention of that name.

"What a coincidence, my second daughter was also called that." He said, shaking out of his momentary relapse.

"That's because I am your second daughter, Dad." Ruby smiled, to which Tai frowned at, then chuckled.

"Okay, you can drop the act, it was very clever, who are you really?"

"Ruby Rose, I ran away when I was three because I was grief stricken with my mother's death to the hand of Grimm."

"But how did you survive? That was twelve years ago, and you should be shorter than Yang, how are you a few feet taller than me?" Tai protested, still not believing her.

"A construct from an ancient civilisation took me off world where I grew up and joined the military. Thanks to the weirdness of space travel, I am actually 21 now. I would explain more, but I think we should move on, people are beginning to stare." There indeed are a few people waiting, all beginning to look at the odd group as Tai now noticed.

"R-right, when we get back to the house I want a proper explanation, young lady!" Ruby and the rest of her group just rolled their eyes and followed him out the airport.

As the car reached a stop outside the small cabin on the outskirts of town, the group got out having sat in the car in pretty much silence. Inside, Tai sat in a chair in the living room next to the coffee table while RBY sat on the couch; a stern expression on his face as he waited patiently for an explanation. Ruby sighed as she pulled out her black box chip and put it into her Tac pad; playing both her discovery of the construct on Reach and her arrival on Remnant while skipping out her discussions with Sovereign Martyr for simplicity's sake. After it had ended and Tai was left confused, Ruby began her explanation.

"After I ran into the forest, I found an AI from the race that built those structures. It showed me inside before eventually walking me through a gate to another planet, one where I was found and adopted. Eventually, that planet got invaded by a Covenant of alien species. My adoptive parents were killed while I was evacuated to a different planet before it got Glassed, a process where the ground is superheated until it becomes volcanic glass." Tai was barely taking any of this in, but still listened.

"When I was 6 I was approached by the navy, offering me a position where I could fight back against the Covenant, I accepted; with nowhere else to go, it was a good deal at the time. So I signed up and joined the Military at 6, there I trained along with about 400 other 4-8 year olds in what was known as the Spartan III program. At 14 we were giving a series of Augmentations which enhanced our speed, reaction time, endurance, and growth.

Later, I was given a suit of power armor and was sent on missions, eventually joining a team known as Noble. When I joined Noble I was posted on a planet called Reach, where we fought and eventually lost against The Covenant, resulting in my team dying, me being left for dead, though it was of my choice, and left to wander, I eventually found the facility I showed you, where another AI repaired my armor, and gave me a portal here, just in time for this year at Beacon to start. I was offered a place, accepted, and the rest is history."

Silence fell on the room as the only sound that could be heard was the clock ticking on the wall.

After about 5 minutes, Tai sat up, and spoke, "So your saying that you were a child soldier?"

"More or less, I did volunteer though, they assured me that if I didn't want to, I could decline."

There was another silence.

Blake and Yang were rather uncomfortable at this point in time, having sat in silence while Tai had taken in their leader's past.

"If you came back before Beacon started and met up with your sister, why is this the first time I'm hearing of this?" He then asked, as Ruby scratched her head.

"Kinda my idea, wanted to keep it a surprise." She replied, "I was curious to see what your reaction was."

After a small pause, Tai laughed, "You can go off planet and train under another military, but you're still your mother's daughter alright."

"Is that so?" Ruby asked. "What was she like?" Tai leaned back in his chair as he remembered Summer Rose, smiling.

"She was amazing; a kind, loving person who cared for everyone. Always managed to get you to calm down when I couldn't" he chuckled. "She was the kindest person I've ever met, and wouldn't pass up the opportunity for a cookie." there was a moment of silence before he continued. "Oh! One time when we were just starting out at Beacon like yourselves, She managed to blow up the training hall in an accident, you should have seen Glynda's face when she got there."

"Goodwitch was teacher back when you were there?" Yang asked, confused.

"No, but with her semblance she was the one usually put in charge of our team's… clean-up, shall we say, and a star student as well." Ruby and Yang laughed at the thought, while Blake had an amused smile on her face.

They continued to chat about whatever came up for a while into late in the night, until Tai checked the time, "Oh, wow, we let the evening get away from us didn't we. Its 11:30, we should probably go to bed." The others nodded after checking the time themselves, also surprised as to how late it had gotten. "Here, I'll show you and Blake to your rooms," Tai offered as they all headed upstairs.

As Blake went to bed, Tai and Ruby stood in her room saying their goodnights. "I still can't believe you're here," He said, looking up to his daughter. "or how much space has changed you."

Ruby shrugged. "Eh, it wasn't too bad. Yeah sure, I nearly died a few hundred times, but I wouldn't change it for the world. After all, I'm back home aren't I?"

"Okay, don't tell me that you nearly died again, because now I won't sleep for a week,"

"Sorry," She cringed.

"But yes, you're back home. It's nice to see you again." He smiled as he hugged her. It did feel rather awkward, given that she was a couple feet taller than him, and quite bulky with muscle, but it was nice.

"Yeah, it's nice to finally meet you too." She replied as they let go and Tai went to walk away.

"Oh," He stopped and snapped his fingers, "I just remembered, your Uncle Qrow is coming around tomorrow, one of the few times he's off a mission and he decided to swoop by. I think you'll like him." He smiled as Ruby nodded and started to close the door. "Goodnight." They called out to each other as Tai turned round to leave and Ruby closed her bedroom door.

The next day, Ruby had awoken early like any other day, but chose to let the others rest while she did her morning routine; it was the winter break after all. So she was quite surprised whenever she saw Tai join her during her morning jog, having found a well worn path and decided to see where it lead.

"You're up early." Her father quipped as he caught up with her, or rather, she slowed down for him, having heard the gentle tapping of his jog.

"Yeah, I normally get up and 5 and do a training routine, just part of me now." she shrugged as they continued in step.

"You only got 5 hours of sleep?!" Tai almost shouted.

"Oh please, Dad. I've gone weeks without sleep before, this is no bother." she retorted, "In fact, since I've come here, I've had the best sleep I've had in years."

"Really?..." He asked as he started to loose his breath.

"Yeah, when you're on stealth missions almost 24/7, you don't get much time to get out of armor and into bed. Especially since it used to take 5 hours without assistance."

"Armor?" Tai's eyebrow raised as Ruby smirked, summoning the armor around her as they jogged. "MJOLNIR Mark-V Powered Assault armor, with some upgrades from an ancient civilization." She replied as Tai inspected the exosuit.

"Wow, that thing must weigh a ton,"

"Only about 160 kilos," She replied, as if it was the weight of a brick.

"Only 160 kilos?!" Tai exclaimed as they came into sight of the house and so slowed down to a walk. "I can't deadlift that let alone walk around in it."

"Hey, the armor carries its own weight, along with giving me further enhanced abilities." She took the helmet off and looked down at him, "Original model cost the same as a ship with one of the most powerful weapons of the UNSC, and was longer than an Atlesian battle cruiser."

"Longer than a Battle cruiser? how do you have the resources?"

"Interstellar civilisation," Was all she said. "And if you must know, that's a light frigate."

"A light frigate?!" he exclaimed as they entered the house where Yang and Blake were sitting in the living room playing cards.

"Oh, armour explanation?" Yang asked as Ruby ducked to enter the door.

"Yup," She put away her armor as she sat down on the couch, "Mind dealing us in?"

"Nope."

They played for a few hours with Yang and Ruby winning most games, sharing laughs, until Ruby was about to win one game when a knock came from the door,

"I'll get it," Tai said setting down his hand and going to the door.

As he opened it a gruff and gravelly voice could be heard,

"Hey Tai, when you said Yang was coming round with her friends I just had to come see the little dragon, I'm lucky I got some time off," his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, even for Ruby, "I was sure Oz was going to have me busy until the tournament."

"Well, were glad you dropped by, come on in, were playing some cards at the moment." Tai invited him in, and as the team looked up, they saw a tall man in a grey suit, with a worn cape, walk in, he was hunched over slightly and had black hair with a few grey flecks and stubble. At the back of his hip was a large sword with what seemed to be a sectioned blade. The top button on his black shirt was undone and a slanted cross hung from his neck.

"Uncle Qrow!" Yang called out, jumping to her feet and giving the tall man a hug,

"Woah there, sunshine," he managed, "You've been training haven't you?"

"Yup, all thanks to my leader," she gestured over to Ruby, who waved at the huntsman from her spot on the couch.

Qrow blinked, noticing the scars on her face, and for a moment he could see, no... it couldn't be, she died years ago.

After taking a moment to recover he apologised, "Sorry, you just look like someone I used to know."

"No worries," she replied, "you may not believe it, but I've been getting that a lot recently,"

"Really?"

"Yeah, want to join in? I was about to win this round."

"Sure, he came down and sat beside her."

Throughout this, Yang was getting more and more impatient that Ruby was prolonging the reveal, and Blake was smiling at her partner's disappointment.

"So," Qrow began after Yang and Tai had sat down, "Are you going to introduce me, or am I going to have to ask them myself?" He looked at Yang expectantly.

"Oh, right, well, not everybody is here obviously, our other member is in Atlas at the moment, Weiss Schnee,"

"You have a Schnee on your team? With a faunus?" He looked at Blake for a moment

"I've made her warm up to other ideas." Ruby interjected, grinning.

"You have done well,"

"I aim to please,"

"Thats Blake," Yang then said, looking at her partner, knowing Ruby wanted to be kept till last, "And believe it or not, the one who managed to get us to work together, giving Ruby a big build up, "Ruby Rose."

There was another pause,

"Your kidding, right?"

"Nope, I am the genuine article," Ruby replied, "Ruby Rose, daughter of Taiyang Xiao-Long, and Summer Rose."

"How?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you,"

"I highly doubt that, how, I spent weeks looking for you, and here you are 12 years later, a foot taller than me and looking like you've been in a war. How?"

"I explained it to Dad not long ago so I'll give you a summary, remnant of an ancient civilization basically kidnapped me and took me to another planet where I was adopted, and later joined the military to become a supersoldier, and because of space travel shenanigans, I'm actually 21. Ozpin offered me a place at Beacon to re-integrate me into society after I managed to get back, and I became the leader of Team RWBY."

"Its true," Tai backed her daughter up, "She showed me substantial proof,"

"Really," Qrow replied, clearly not believing this"and what would that proof be?"

She showed her skeptical Uncle the same thing she had shown Tai, but he still wasn't buying it.

"Sorry kid, going to need more than weird structures and then what could be a faked video of Ozpin." He said, crossing his arms

"Then how about me being the only person who had an Aura and Semblance with them."

"What does that mean, plenty of people don't have an Aura unlocked."

"Well, considering Yang had unlocked my Aura before I ran off, and the fact that the humanity I was found by had never even heard of it before, heck because I was so young I didn't even remember what to call it, until I got back. That should suffice wouldn't it?"

"And proof of this?"

"Sure, but for context, we were at war with an alliance of Alien races at the time, me being a soldier meant I used it to my advantage then,"

"Ok, show it to me then."

Ruby pulled up when she used her semblance in New Alexandria, and the marine asked about it.

"When I was in training, ONI, or the Office of Naval Intelligence picked up on my Aura and semblance, and whisked me aside, giving me private training for it and told me that it was on a need to know basis that I had that ability." Ruby explained, "The amount of tests they did to work out what it was that made me different from everyone else, to no avail, I myself thought that I somehow had superpowers, unlike anyone in the human race, until I came back here."

Qrow was still seeming a little sceptical, but was easing into more of the idea, when Ruby remembered something, and snapped her fingers,

"I know something that will make you believe me," and went to her tac-pad, looking up something. A moment later a small metal badge appeared, the overall shape looking like a rose on fire, "Mom gave this to me just before she left for her last mission, and, I'm pretty sure, that we are the only two people who's semblance includes rose petals."

"And what is your semblance?" Qrow asked, "That video didn't really showcase it very well."

She smiled as a cloud of petals burst around her, and she reappeared with a bottle of beer in her hand, and passed it to her uncle "Saw the flask when you came in, thought you'd want some."

Now thoroughly shocked, and provided, Qrow, took a long swig of the bottle,

"So you're telling me that the reason I couldn't find you is because an Alien civilization took you to another planet, where you became a soldier, pretty much straight from Atlas, and fought Aliens for much of that time?"

"Yup, though I could probably take on a couple hundred Atlas Soldiers no problem."

"Those are big words," he smiled, "Can you back them up though?"

"Is that a challenge?" Qrow's giant niece asked, looking down with a smirk.

"Sure, outback, grab your weapon and we'll see who wins a tournament-style round."

"No _this_ I gotta see," Yang murmured to Blake,

"Well," Ruby began, "I don't have a weapon of my own, at least not a single weapon,"

"What do you mean?"

"Alien stuff again, I'm basically a walking armoury, so, to make it fair." She pulled out a knife from her boot. "I'll use this."

"Really? You think you can take me on with that?"

"No armour Ruby!" Yang called out, "Don't completely destroy him."

"Of course I wasn't going to armour up, I want to give him _some_ chance."

Qrow started getting confused, "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"You'll see, after our fight."


	12. Chapter 11: A Major Test of Strength

**Hoo boy, Last Chapter before the big thing, as Ruby fights Qrow. A lot of you say Qrow could put up a decent fight, and all things considered he could, but given how** **fast Ruby can react, it still won't be enough in my opinion. Aside from Warhammer 40k, (and from the ridiculously overpowered stuff) Halo has the strongest soldiers I've seen from a franchise, I mean Chief is able to punch about half a foot into pretty much solid titanium alloy at the end of Halo 3, like it's nothing, and he's more of an average level strength for a Spartan. given that, and the fact that Ruby is enhanced by Aura, and has Forerunner Augs, and you have a mighty punch. And that's just the tip of the Iceberg.**

 **But enough rambling about the op-ness of Halo in general, thanks to RT first End of Vol 7. I could talk about that for hours, so those who don't have it, look forward to it.**

 **But as always, I hope you enjoy this chapter, feel free to critique anything, I'm always up on suggestions on how to improve my writing, I don't own RWBY or Halo, if I did, there would be lots of changes to the canon on both cases, but they are owned by 343 Industries and RoosterTeeth respectively, so yeah. Also Yay for almost 200 faves and 250 follows.**

 **the ammount of things that will happen once we catch up with Canon though**.

* * *

They all headed outside and into the garden, where there was a sand ring for this sort of occasion. It was a standard size for a combat ring in class, one of the advantages of living in the country is having the room, as Ruby and Qrow got to their respective locations, and Tai was referee.

"Ok standard tournament rules, first to get the opponent's aura in the red, or out of the ring wins, Qrow, since you have a gun, try not to wreck the house, I can't fix it like Glynda can."

"I'll try," Qrow replied, almost sarcastically,

Tai backed up to where Yang and Blake were watching,

"I'm honestly curious to see how this turns out," Tai said to the pair, as both fighters did their stretches

"Well, considering We haven't been able to hit her once when she's serious, and can bench-press vehicles, I think Qrow's winning streak is about to come to an end," Yang told her dad,

"You can't land a single hit on her?" He reiterated, "I find that hard to believe,"

"It's true," Blake replied, "She once said her reaction time is in the milliseconds, and they weren't even sure about that because it was so hard to track."

"I dunno…" Tai muttered, as the pair finished up, and waited for him to give the signal to start. Both had their eyes narrowed and a confident smirk on their face.

"Ok, you both ready?" Tai asked, and the pair nodded, "3, 2, 1!" He counted down, and as his hand dropped with the one, Ruby dashed forward as Qrow drew his weapon.

He was caught off guard at how quickly Ruby had closed the gap between them, and had to quickly pull up the blade of his sword to block it, he grunted as he had to put two hands on the weapon to keep Ruby's one-handed knife away.

"Well…" he managed out, straining to keep himself planted, "You're strong and fast, I'll give you that."

"That's not the only thing." Ruby taunted, pushing forward and jumping back a few paces. She twirled the knife and looked at her uncle, as if waiting for him to do something, not wasting a moment, Qrow capitalised the opportunity to go on the offensive, he rushed forward, slashing at Ruby, who parried each strike with the small combat knife, thankful that it had been remade out of the Forerunner alloy used in her armour. She tried to sweep out his legs but he jumped over her, but that movement gave a chance to retaliate, going in with slash of the small blade, unable to manoeuvre easily mid-air, Qrow was open to attack, and took the full slice along his side that he knew, had it not been for his Aura, it would have been fatal. Despite this, he focused and the blade of his sword tilted down, revealing a gun barrel in the hilt, with Ruby in the same position as Qrow had been not long ago, he fired.

What happened next was incredible to everyone who saw it, seemingly immediately after the shot was fired, Ruby split into 3 forms of rose petals, arcing round behind the bullets and Qrow, and punched him forward, he was sent forward and almost out of the ring, but saved himself by embedding his sword into the dirt and using it as an anchor to slow him down just as he reached the edge.

Both were sweating, but Qrow was significantly more than Ruby, as both stood on opposite ends of the ring, still smirking, though Qrow was also wincing.

"You know," Blake said to her partner and her father, "It's closer than I thought it would be."

"What do you mean?" Tai asked, "Qrow hasn't landed a single hit and he's almost in the red already."

Yang answered her distressed dad, "Well, in Port's first class she stopped a spinning Boarbratusk head-on and snapped a tusk off, before killing it with it, so yeah, considering Qrow lasted her initial push was a good start."

Tai just looked in dismay at his 'youngest' daughter fighting his brother-in-law before Yang added one more thing, "Then again She's probably still going easy on him."

Both opponents ran to the middle of the ring, but as they did so, Qrow's sword transformed again, this time the blade curved at its sections, as the hilt extended into a scythe and he began to spin towards Ruby, causing her to have to evade the spinning blade that was now a scythe. Using the ground to stop himself he changed directions, running back to meet Ruby, weapon in Sword-form again, he slashed at her, she had to dodge these ones as she hadn't fully stopped from her charge, trying to capitalise on this, Qrow continued his flurry of swipes and slashes as Ruby got ground and began to parry again.

They got blade locked like at the start, but Ruby pushed through with both hands, causing Qrow to have to bounce off, before she threw the knife. It moved insanely fast, catching Qrow off guard again, not thinking he'd have to deflect long-ranged attacks. By the time he had dealt with the speedy knife, which was now in the dirt at his feet, Ruby had closed the distance between them and dodged the swipe Qrow made at her before going to his blind spot and punching him.

Qrow swung round, sword trying to hit the red blur, but she ducked and spun round, sweeping out Qrow's legs mid-spin.

He managed to recover with a hand plant and a push-off back to his feet, just in time to deflect another punch with his blade, the punch to the sharp of the blade dealt a sliver of damage to Ruby's Aura, as she slapped the side out of the way and punched Qrow in the nose, sending him out of the ring and his Aura into the red.

He groaned as he got up, the applause of the small audience being the only major sound in the area as Ruby helped him up.

"Man…" Qrow managed, "You were right, you sure are tough."

"Wasn't a headhunter for nothing," Ruby replied,

"Headhunter?"

"Spartans like me taken out of the main program and got special training in wetwork," She explained, "Put in teams of 1 or 2 to go take out value targets."

"You've killed people?" He looked up at her niece,

"Among other things, we were facing extinction while trying to subdue terrorists, so, to get hard numbers you'd probably have to steal my file from ONI."

"Steal it because..?"

"I'm a Spartan, I'm a headhunter, and I am the only one the UNSC knows having Aura and a semblance, it's pretty much the most top-secret you can get without being ONI."

"I see, you were their pet project then."

"Kind of, until I was assigned to Noble Team, a squad of 5 other Spartans used as a combat force where needed."

"And Yang knows this?" They were walking towards the others now,

"My whole team does, it was off-putting at first, and I sure as hell don't expect them to do the same, given that I'm training them, just using my knowledge to get them up to the best of their ability without putting themselves at too great a risk."

"Ah, Rundown of training right?" Yang asked with a knowing grin,

"Not really, just giving him a bit of background of what I did before I came back here, and it moved onto training."

"Oh, ok,"

"So what Is your current regime anyway?" Tai asked as they all headed inside,

"200 press-ups of each type, followed by 200 sit-ups and a 5-mile jog before sparring for the remainder of the morning, leaving enough time to get showered and dressed for class."

"And you're not exhausted!?"

"The first few weeks we were," Blake admits, "But after a while, we got used to it, and it keeps us in shape."

"I'll say,"

"I think at the beginning of next semester, we'll start adding combat strategy lessons," Ruby told her teammates, "Work on Efficiency in checking perimeters and stuff,"

"Are you going to turn my daughter into a soldier?" Tai asked, the warning clear in her voice.

"No, no, no," Ruby assured, "Just some pointers in helping them make sure they don't get snuck up on when their guard is down. I'm done with military stuff, just going to use my training to my advantage."

"Right…" Qrow answered, obviously not convinced.

"Ok, Dad, Qrow, we get it, you don't like what Ruby is used to doing," Yang said, breaking the tension between the three of them, "But we all chose this, Ruby is just the one who is keeping us motivated and giving us pointers, so give her some slack ok?"

The two parental figures in Yang's life narrowed their eyes at her and Ruby, but said nothing else.

"Now are we going to finish that game of cards and deal Qrow in or not?" She asked,

To which Blake snorted, "You're just going to lose again, Yang"

The tense air suddenly broke at this comment, as Qrow finally smiled, even if was small,

"Alright, I'll drop it for now," he said rubbing Yang's hair, "Let's see if I can beat you at something a little less physical, shall we?"

"You can try Old man."

"Hey, you don't get to call me old, I'm not much older than you at this point."

Ruby just looked down at her uncle and grinned smugly, before heading to where the others sat down on the couches and chairs

"So, sis," Yang called to Ruby as she was about to sit down, "You going to show Uncle Qrow your armour or what?"

"Oh yes, that's right," Ruby replied, she moved off out of the way of the table, so that everyone could see her. "A little context should be provided of course," She said, gesturing to Qrow.

"Before arriving back here, I had this armour upgraded by another AI of the people who took me away here. But before that, I could fall from space, and with a little assistance, walk it off. It cost the same as a ship that is longer than an Atlesian Battlecruiser, with one of if not the most powerful firing weapons within the UNSC, and aside from the armour itself, has what my old commander called "the single most expensive equipment made by man," which allowed us to travel the stars. It enhances my strength, speed, reaction time, has night vision in case I am in an area where even my eyes can't see, blocks most radiation, and allows for underwater or vacuum situations."

"Your kidding right?" Qrow said.

"Nope," Ruby smugly replied, "And the thing is the ship it was similar in value to, was considered a light frigate, And before you say anything," She put her finger up to Qrow, knowing the question he had poised, "Interstellar Civilisation, before the war, The United Earth Government had over 800 Colony worlds."

"...Wow…" The huntsman replied after a few moments, taking a swig from his flask. "So am I going to see this armour then or what?"

Ruby smiled, before selecting her armour and letting it form around her.

Qrow watched as armour grew from the scroll-like object on Ruby's wrist, in a way he could only describe as reverse disintegration, working its way over her body as a skinsuit followed by very Atlesian looking armour, only a deep red and black in colour. After the armour had formed around Ruby, a bright blue Aura surrounded her for a few moments, growing in intensity before fading. This brought a confused look to his face as he looked at the silver visor, wasn't her Aura red?

"Oh, Energy shields," Ruby's voice came from the suit, having a slightly muffled, but at the same time echoey nature to it.

"What now?"

"The suit comes with its own energy shields," she replied,

"Since nobody but me had Aura, and Plasma gives one helluva burn, even to our best metals, we reversed engineered our enemy's tech to get energy shields. Mine, again has been upgraded, but the process is pretty much the same."

She walked over to her uncle,

"Here, you can feel it if you go slow enough."

Qrow placed a hand gently on Ruby's arm, and sure enough, a thin barrier pushed back, it felt like an oily clay he tried sinking into, but left no residue on his hand. It was strange, to say the least.

"You talked about plasma," Qrow then said, "What's that?"

"A superheated gas to the point the particles that make it up start t dissolve. Or, the stuff stars are made out of."

You're saying the aliens you fought used stars to fight you?"

"Well, in as much as making stuff is using the planet, anything can become a plasma if given enough energy, hell, before my armour was upgraded, it ran on a process that utilises plasma, we just can't weaponise it yet."

"I see…" Was Qrow's response, despite clearly not. "Shall we play then?"

"Yup, just let me put this away,"

Another moment and the armour dissolved away and Ruby sat down to play some more cards.


	13. Chapter 12: Foes to Friends

**Ok, this is rather a long one, because of an Exposition dump, so apart from that, not much timewise happens, next chapter will see all the good stuff.**

 **I will admit, I basically had to rewrite this chapter, as I forgot to enclude Qrow, and he changed everything from te first time i wrote it, there will be more notes at the end this time beacuse I don't want to spoil things.**

 **Feel free to Review, I am always open to suggestions and queries, but make sure you read the post notes first.**

 **I own neither RWBY or Halo, they are properties of RoosterTeeth and 343 Industries respectively.**

* * *

The group played for a couple more hours, Qrow surprised at the amount of times Ruby won, but she and Blake noticed that she lost more often, ever since Qrow joined, she seemed to be getting more bad hands than before, making it seem like she was just really lucky before.

It was just Qrow and Ruby left in the game when a surprising sound filled the room, causing everyone to pause. It sounded again as Ruby looked down to see that her tac pad had beeped. She checked it, as a UNSC signal popped up.

"That's strange…" She said, brow furrowing,

"What is it?" Yang asked, asking the question everyone was wondering,

"That can't be right…" Ruby muttered, "I'm apparently receiving a UNSC signal."

"What? You sure?"

"It's using the same frequencies and encryption schemes."

"Well let's hear it." Qrow told her, curious.

she hit play and heard a familiar voice. **"Mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate evac. Survivors aboard. Prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra-0117, and Arbitor"** She furrowed her brow as Yang and Blake looked at each other,

"Hang on guys, I need to take this." Ruby told the family group before heading outside

"Forward Unto Dawn this is Sierra-Beta-312, hearing you loud and clear, I'm grounded on a non-UNSC or Covenant planet, can you reach me? Over."

 **"Sierra-Beta-312.We receive you, but we're currently without the ability to change our trajectory due to a slipspace incident. We're currently headed towards a planet with a shattered moon. We have escape pods but the rest of the ship will land in the ocean next to a large continent stretching to the southern and northern hemisphere of the planet. Sending you a beacon, are you there?"**

"Affirmative, that is the planet I'm on, on a small island on the west coast of the continent." She replied, looking at the map, right in the middle of the sea between Vale and Vacuo, at least no-one would get hurt. "When is your ETA?"

 **"Approximately 2 hours from now, I'll try and triangulate your position, are you clear for landing?"**

"I'll be clear by the time you get here, see you then."

" **Copy that Sierra-Beta-312,"**

"What's going on?" Yang asked as they all stood up as she re-entered the house,

"Some friends managed to get themselves stranded due to a slipspace accident, and their ride is landing in the sea between Vale and Vacuo, currently they're trying to triangulate my position to land an escape pod." Everyone stared at her, waiting to explain further, "Meaning, we need to get out of town and somewhere quiet for him to make planetfall."

"When?" Tai asked, unsure about all of this,

"As soon as humanly possible, I don't know how much that construct boosted my signal, but it's gonna take a while for them to lock onto it, and we have 2 hours until planetfall, so, let's go!" she opened the door and gestured to everyone to go outside, Yang and Blake both rushed out with Tai and Qrow still hesitant.

"Come on, we haven't got all day, I'll drive." After a hit more convincing the two of them finally came as Ruby jumped into the front seat of the car, and gave a quick "Hang on!" before the car gave out a squeal in protest as it slammed into 3rd gear and sped down the drive, and out of town.

"Hey! Careful on the gears!" Tai exclaimed as they shot off,

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing dad!

/

An hour and a half later they were sitting in an empty plot of land, watching the UNSC frigate fall to the planet, in all its flaming splendour. It was a massive hunk of grey metal, and as they watched, Ruby noticed that it was only the Tail-end, which explained why they couldn't adjust, no flight deck meant they were sitting ducks.

"It's the Tail-end…" She said loud enough for everyone to hear. "What kind of slipspace accident caused the entire front half to be broken off?"

As they continued to watch, a small cloud of smoke burst off from the rest, heading towards them, when it had cleared, a metal pod, in the shape of a cockpit, with a parachute and windbreaks on its sides was what was coming towards them.

As her TAC pad calculated a trajectory, it said that it was going to land and come to a stop a few feet in front of them, so she gestured to the others, "Move back a bit, it's coming in hot." It slowed down to about the speed of a moped before landing, skidding the last few feet before coming to a halt. The door to the craft opened as a suit of green and black armour with a golden visor, as soon as he got out, Ruby instantly saluted out of habit.

"At ease, B312," The cool voice from the distress call dismissed as she relaxed, "You're officially KIA, no need for formality… And yet here you stand before us, taller than when I last saw you, might I add, and with company. May I ask who they are?" A hologram of a blue woman appeared on the man's upturned palm with a data chip inside. Though the avatar was naked, no inappropriate parts were present, as if she was modelled not to have them.

"You're the AI that I gave to Keyes."

"Yes, I am, CTN 0452-9 or Cortana, It's nice to finally meet you properly."

"Yes, it is." came her reply, and she was about to say something more before Qrow intervened.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah," he began, waving his hands, "Ruby, you mind telling us who these people are?" He asked looking at Ruby,

"Right.." Ruby nodded, "Sorry, Everyone, meet possibly one of of not the most well decorated member of the UNSC, The Master Chief Petty Officer of The Navy, Sir, this is my family." She gestured to each of them in turn, "My uncle Qrow, Taiyang Xiao Long, Yang, and her partner Blake,"

"I thought the Spartan III candidates were all orphans…" Cortana said, digital face scrunching up in confusion.

"Well, turns out this is my home planet," Ruby began. "My mom was something known here as a huntress, kind of like government run mercenaries, and died on the job when I was really young.

Being a toddler and not realising the true implications of this, I ran away looking for her, when I was found by this weird floating orb, from that civilisation you were studying, actually." She told the AI, causing both her and the Chief to flinch slightly, "And he said something about 'reclaimers not supposed to be here,' and the next thing I knew I was on new Harmony with my adoptive family."

"You mean you discovered a monitor," another voice was heard, this time deep, and gravilly, which could only be the Chief's

"If that's what they're called, yeah,"

"Perhaps they're not Halo exclusive," Cortana suggested, looking up at the Spartan II,

"Halo exclusive..?" Ruby asked confused, "What do you mean by that?"

"A lot has happened in the 4 months after Reach," Cortana told her, "We learned a lot more about the race I was studying, and quite probably put an end to the war."

"You mean we won?" Ruby questioned, trying to make sure she heard the AI correctly.

"Kind of, yes. The prophet Higherarks that ran the Covenant are dead, and their capital, High Charity has fallen."

"Well, what do you mean kind of then?"

"It's a long story,"

"Right," she paused for a moment, before asking, "The distress beacon mentioned, 'The Arbiter', Who is that may I ask?"

Cortana and Chief looked at each other before Chief sighed, "Before you meet him, know that he was instrumental to saving Humanity against the Covenant, and another threat that we will explain when we go into more detail."

"Well, with all due respect sir, if he's so great, when can I meet him?" He nodded as there was another set of footsteps in the pod, as an elite clad in silver armour climbed out.

Immediately, Ruby pulled out her DMR on him, and Yang and Blake reached for their weapons, having put them on in case they encountered Grimm. The Elite froze as Chief called out just as Ruby was going to pull the trigger, "Stand down Ruby!"

Yang, Blake, and Ruby were holding the elite at gunpoint, while Chief and Tai tried to hold everyone back.

"Sir…" Ruby began, "Give me one good reason why you're asking me to stop from blasting this Elite to hell!" she spat bitterly to Chief.

"Because he is The Arbiter." Cortana almost yelled.

The Arbiter spoke then, in a very deep voice, and all four mandibles moved as he did so, "I can understand your anger human, but I have changed. I realise that the Covenant was feeding us lies."

"And why should I trust you?" came Ruby's venomous reply,

"I do not expect you to, but as my friends say, I fought alongside your forces to take down the Covenant and The Parasite. Along with all the Elites of the former Covenant."

"Lieutenant, Stand down." Came The Chief's voice as Ruby lowered her gun a bit, but still held it tightly. "Let us explain."

Cortana took charge. "After The Autumn left Reach, it found a mysterious Ringworld construct known as Halo. Because we were pursued by Covenant forces, we had to make an emergency landing on the ring. Upon reaching there, we discovered that it was made by the same civilisation as the structure beneath SWORD, known as the Forerunners to combat the Flood, a parasitic race that targets all sentient life." Ruby nodded as she continued. "When the Covenant attacked us on Halo, they discovered a facility with the Flood inside, accidentally releasing it and causing widespread panic throughout their forces. We used this to our advantage, getting back Captain Keys, who was captured shortly after landing, but then we realized the danger of the Flood, it is a species that gathers all the knowledge of that that it consumes." A weird, almost squid-like creature with tentacles and feelers was summoned up next to Cortana.

"If one of these infection forms gets inside a sentient host, it mutates it, bending bones and reforming them into combat forms all while rapidly decaying their flesh."

More images appeared, of twisted, morphed marines and elites, appeared next to her, all with feelers sticking out from somewhere. "As they gain the knowledge of the people they infect, they gather biomass into a central location to form what's known as a Proto-Gravemind. This causes the flood to gain intelligence at an alarming rate, and changes them from something feral into something coordinated." A huge bulge of biomass appeared, tendrils sticking out in all directions, while legs of the latest victims hung out from beneath it.

"It was at this point we knew we had to destroy the Flood before they got to this stage, so set about firing Halo. It was only then, that we found out, how, Halo destroys the Flood. It doesn't destroy it, it starves it, by eliminating all life within 25,000 lightyears by destroying their Central Nervous System with Gamma radiation." Ruby nodded, taking this in.

"So we set about destroying Halo, and we succeeded, wiping out the flood as well. Chief and I made it back to Earth, where we were getting celebrations for our victory when a small Covenant fleet suddenly appeared. We fought them off, leading the Prophet of Regret to performing a slipspace jump in atmosphere. Chief and I quickly followed, managing to follow through their slipspace rupture to another Halo ring. it turned out that there was an entire array throughout the galaxy that could all be fired to wipe out all life within the galaxy. The Covenant believed firing them would start the Great Journey, causing them to ascend like the Forerunners, who obviously died when the rings were fired.

We killed the Prophet of Regret, but were forced underwater by a bombardment where we were saved by a Gravemind, the next stage in a Flood's infection. there had been a containment breach on this ring seemingly, and it had accumulated enough biomass from the wildlife that grew there. The Gravemind also pulled down The Arbiter, convincing him of Halo's purpose. It bargained with us to stop Halo from being fired, so we helped it out, seeing as it was in all of our best interest."

It was here that the Arbiter spoke again. "It was around this time, that the Prophets changed their honour guard from Elites to Brutes, saying that we couldn't protect them any longer. This caused a rebellion of The Elites. As I met up with them, we stopped the Firing of Halo only to find out it had been left on standby, allowing the entire array to be fired from Installation 00, Also known as The Ark."

"Chief and I were hunting down The Prophet of Regret, before I had to get left behind on the Covenant station High Charity, which The flood was starting to infect, having hijacked the ship we arrived on, to ensure that the ring could be destroyed.

As Chief and The Arbiter returned to Earth, they found out that there was a Forerunner ship on Earth that could take them to The Ark. After fighting their way there, defeating The Flood that had come through on a Covenant Carrier, I managed to get a message through to Chief saying that this was their only shot to stop the Flood, Which had now migrated to High Charity, and was on their way to The Ark."

"Upon Entering the Portal to The Ark on The Forward Unto Dawn, the Master Chief and I made our way to the Control room of The Ark after retrieving Cortana, where the Prophet of Truth was in the process of firing the rings. We made another truce with The Flood to stop the firing of the rings, upon doing so, however, The Flood stopped us from evacuating, forcing us to fight our way out."

"A Forerunner AI let us know of a Halo ring being built, a replacement for the one we destroyed, so, after making our way to the control room on the ring, we fired it, causing it to shake itself to pieces, and The Flood to be left without a food source on The Ark, quarantined within High Charity. We escaped to The Dawn where we set a course for the Portal to Earth, but as we were passing through, it closed on us, causing the ship to be ripped in two and drift in space, where we found this place." Cortana finally concluded their explanation.

"Ok, How did you end up on Halo?" Ruby asked, gesturing to The Arbiter.

"After becoming The Arbiter, I was sent on a mission to hunt down a Heretic to The Covenant, he had The Oracle, which is to say, The AI in charge of the Installation they destroyed. Upon Interrogation on High Charity, The Oracle revealed how to activate the rings. So I went with a team to secure The Activation Index before The Prophets ordered my execution, and I was knocked into a pit where I was rescued by the parasite."

She finally lowered her gun, and gestured for the others to do the same, as she thought everything over. After about a minute's pause, she finally spoke up again, "You may have saved all life in the Galaxy, but I cannot forgive your kind for what your kind have done."

"Were it so easy." Was all the Arbiter replied with as Ruby sighed,

"I suppose you want my explanation now, don't you, sir?"

"You'd be right," Chief spoke up again,

"Well, after I handed Cortana over to Keyes, and assured The Autumn's departure, I wandered around Reach until I found a bunker, I hid there until the glassing was over, and roamed around the dead planet, trying to find a way off, All the Banshees were too high, and any craft left on the ground was unusable." The Arbiter visibly stiffened for a moment,

"So I kept wandering until I found what I can only assume to be another Forerunner structure, based on what you have told me, and there I encountered an AI, he offered to repair, and upgrade my Armor, while giving me further augmentations to get my body in peak physical condition. After the process, he offered to use the available portal network to send me to another planet, but as they started up the portal, I realised, that something I thought was just a strange dream, had been a memory from my past, taking me through the portal, I wound up here, Remnant, my home planet." she paused before turning to Cortana,

"Since you chose me to be your escort, I assume you've read my file, my strange gifts, 'natural energy shield', 'Ability to turn into a burst of rose petals?'" Cortana nodded, "Turns out there not all that strange here, they're known as Aura and Semblances, Everyone here has an Aura, whether or not it's unlocked however is a different matter, and everyone here has their unique Semblance, my sister, Yang," she gestured to Yang, who gave a small wave, "Can take damage and deal it back double, as long as it doesn't break her Aura."

"Really?" The AI mused, her natural curiosity getting the better of her.

"Anyway, We should probably hightail it before Grimm arrives."

"Grimm?" Cortana asked, perplexed.

"Yeah, a type of creatures that are plaguing civilisation here. While they come in different shapes and sizes, they all share some common traits; they're black, have thick bone plating on various parts of their body, are always feral, and are attracted to negative emotions."

"Interesting…" She hummed, before disappearing as Chief put the chip back into his helmet.

"Uuh, are you sure the jeep will carry them?" Tai asked, worried that the additional weight would cause the car to collapse.

"Yeah, it will just be like your towing a trailer," Ruby assured. "If you want I can go alongside."

"You can keep up?"

"A normal Spartan can run about 34mph in armour. My armour is lighter, and I have a semblance that allows me to turn into a burst of rose petals and move roughly double my top speed. I think I can keep up."

"R-right."

"Actually," Cortana spoke up, "Not only are you not in your armour Lieutenant, but you said this is a Non-UNSC planet right?"

"Yes, they don't even have space travel,"

"Really?"

"Yeah, our main source of power, a product known as Dust, doesn't work off-planet, and we haven't figured out something that is strong enough as a substitute yet," Tai told the AI voice.

"Huh," there was a moment's pause, "Well, I think it would be best that we speak to the governing body,"

"There isn't one body, unfortunately," Ruby replied, "Remnant is divided into 4 kingdoms: Vale, Vacuo, Mistral and Atlas. Patch, the Island were on is apart of Vale, and I just so happen to know a council member for Vale." Her TAC-pad buzzed with an incoming signal, "In fact, that's him now."

She took it out of the strap and held it up to her ear like a scroll,

"Hello?" she answered

 **"Miss Rose,"** Came Ozpin's voice from the other end of the line. **"Would you have any idea about what I just saw coming falling outside my window into the sea? Seeing as you are much well versed in that area than I am, and arguably, anyone on the planet, is it something we should take as a threat?"**

"No, professor, In fact, what you just saw, was the tail end of a Charon-class light frigate from the UNSC, and it had a couple friendlies on board, they would like to meet you, if that would be All right.

There was a pause, before Ozpin responded, **"That would be fine, I shall send over a Bullhead, though they are probably going to have to publicly announce their presence before long."**

"That's fine, I'll be sure to pass on the message, see you in a few hours."

"Alright, see you then," Ozpin hung up as Ruby transmitted her coordinates, before turning back to the group. "Ozpin's sending a Bullhead to pick everyone up and take us to Beacon," she told everyone, "Should be here within the hour."

"And who is this Ozpin?" Arbiter asked, a little weary of Ruby and her team.

"He's the headmaster of Beacon Academy, a School that trains Huntsmen and Huntresses to fight Grimm, each kingdom has one, and their headmasters are given a seat on that kingdom's council."

"I see…" Cortana murmurs, pondering the new information.

* * *

 **Ok, ok, I know, I know, having Chief is one thing, but the Arbitor too? seems crackish in the case of this fic, but, I did want this to be a part of it, and I have a way for them to be re-established back into the proper Halo Canon, and leave Remnant alone for good, just some minor adjustments to be made to the OG canon. but we needed this to discover some of the secrets I have planted, and Cortana gives the right insentive to dig up those secrets, as well as Ruby being at peace, no longer having to worry about The Covenant coming and Glassing Remnant out of no-where.**

 **That and some good ol' Character groth and acceptance of The Arbiter and Elites in general, still has a grudge against Brutes though. So, look forward to discoving how Remnant is seperate from UNSC control, and what becoming a Sheild world has done to it.**


	14. Chapter 13: Foreign Relations

**Another exposition heavy chapter, sorry everyone! We will have plot next chapter I promise, but what with more introductions, it comes with more explanations.**

 **I will admit though, the last part of this chapter kinda just came about, you know when your writing and it ends up being that the characters do something completely different than what you had planed? yeah it happened a little. But, it suits them, and I'm sure you'll agree.**

 **also, I migh as well clarify something here, because it will come up ar some point. This fic is primarily following Ruby and her team, we may switch to orher people's perspectives to get a better idea on what their feeling, but not if Ruby and her team arent there, that means theres not going to be a mention of it, so no insight to any antagonist plans either. This is my way of writing and I do it so that you connect to the main characters more, the only time I would change it is if an antagonist has become a main member, and them it would be via flashback as to not tip off the story ahead of time.**

 **these characters and settings are owned by 343 Industries and RoosterTeeth respectivly, I don't own RWBY or Halo, just this story.**

* * *

They passed the time explaining the new group how Remnant works, or at least the major points, Dust, Grimm, The four kingdoms, and what they're known for, as well as Faunus and the White fang.

Which Cortana had a particular interest in, and unfortunately confirm ging that Earth's humanity wasn't much different when it came to terms of discrimination, trying to find any way to separate themselves or cast judgement on a different 'race' and how long it took to resolve the problem.

It didn't seem long before two Bullhead arrived, and they all climbed inside, the pilots couldn't help but stare at the Arbiter, towering over everyone bar Ruby and with the strange appendages they were not used to seeing, RBY were still uncomfortable with him so close, and that made Tai and Qrow nervous, but since Chief and Cortana seemed to be ok with him, they had to put up with it.

The ride was mostly in silence, as Chief and Arbiter watched as Remnant passed beneath them, Cortana joining them in wondering how this planet came to be if no space influence could be seen.

They arrived in the courtyard where Ozpin stood waiting, flanked by Glynda, and surprisingly, Dr Ooblek.

"TaiYang, it's been a while hasn't it?" Ozpin stated to the other man, but before he could reply, their three hosts visibly stiffened at the sight of, first the Chief, and then, behind him, Arbiter taller than all but Ruby, who was just shy of him. The three did not fail to notice her seeming aversion to the Sangheili either.

There was a stiff moment of tension, before Ozpin broke it by saying,

"Let's head to my office shall we?"

Inside Ozpin's office the group stood, Arbiter and Chief taking a moment to look at the architecture,

"Well, he certainly has his style…" Cortana spoke to Chief privately, who hummed in agreement.

"So, I believe Introductions are in order." Ozpin announced as he span round to face them, "I am Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy and member of the Vale Council, This is my assistant and Combat instructor, Glynda Goodwitch, and Dr. Bartholomew Ooblek, Our History teacher."

Glynda was quite obviously trying to glair down the two newcomers, sizing them up, but they both paid her no heed above being polite when Arbiter took it upon himself to speak up first,

"Arbiter of Sangheilios," he put a hand across his cuirass and bowed, respectfully,

"Master Chief Petty Officer of the UNSC Navy," was the Chief's curt reply

"Do you have a name?" Ozpin asked,

"Classified,"

"Surely you have something else to go by,"

"Chief, Spartan, or 117 will suffice,"

"I see, well, now that that is out of the wa-" he was cut off by Cortana,

"There's one more actually…" and at the sound of her voice, his grip tightened around his cane as his stance shifted slightly, as Chief took out her chip and she appeared in his upturned palm.

"CTN 0452-9 UNSC Smart AI, Cortana, I hope I didn't alarm you."

Ozpin could have sworn… no, Cortana's voice is younger than hers, it was subtle, and he had mistaken it for a moment, but now that he realised it was different, he relaxed a little, a little.

"No, no, it's fine, you just sound like an old enemy of mine, nothing to worry about, you say you're a 'smart' AI? What's the difference?"

"A smart AI can learn from their surroundings, a 'dumb' one is limited to a specific task or set of information."

"Fascinating," Dr Ooblek spoke up, "To think there are life on other planets that can travel the stars, but that they can make such clever creations too."

"Oh I'm pretty much required for Slipspace travel," Cortana replied, "Travelling through Slipspace requires Billions of calculations every moment to make sure the ship isn't destroyed, and while they can be done by a human, it would take months to chart one trip."

"I see… Facinating."

"When Ruby arrived a few months ago, she said that you were at war with 'The Covenant.'" Ozpin told the group, "I imagine that you seem to hold some status within your respective factions, you would like to rejoin the fight as soon as possible, yes?"

"Yes and no," Cortana replied, "We would like to get back, and that is part of the reason we came to see you, but not to rejoin the fight, we have it on good authority that the Covenant is not as much of a threat as it once was."

"Really?"

"Well since the Arbiter personally killed the last Hierarch, and the Capital has fallen, yes"

He raised his eyebrow, and the response was an abridged form of the Halo campaigns, revealing the fact that The Arbiter was apart of the Covenant before the Great Schism, and the truth about Halo was revealed to him.

They left out the more classified details, only going as far to say that the Flood should be stopped in the most over the top way as possible, to stop the possibility of a spore escaping unnoticed.

"I'm sorry, 'nukes?' Ozpin stopped them, confused at the term.

"Nuclear weapons." Cortana replied, "Does this world not have them?"

"I'm afraid not, we do not have such things," was the response, "We use dust for just about everything, from transport to weaponry and power,"

"I see... Well, A Nuclear Weapon that uses the power of either a runaway fission reaction of a Radioactive element, commonly either Plutonium, or Uranium, though others have been used, or a condensed Fusion reaction that is released to give out a similar explosion, but without the radioactive fallout of the former."

"Fallout?"

"When a Fission bomb goes off, it rarely uses all of its components during the reaction, and the leftover bits of radioactive material, as well as any radioactive waste formed by the process, is scattered into the surrounding area, in atmosphere this can be quite devastating, as radiation can remain in an area for centuries after the initial blast, not to mention it could travel thousands of Kilometers from the blast zone, it's why they're known as dirty bombs to the Navy,"

"And what process are Fission and Fusion exactly?" Ozpin asked, morbidly curious about these supposedly deadly weapons, but he still had no idea of the magnitude of theses explosives.

"Fission is when an Atom becomes unstable, usually because of an added Neutron and breaks apart into two smaller atoms, releasing a ton of energy, and because usually the atom had too many Protons and Neutrons to just become two atoms, it usually also produces two Neutrons that go flying off, if they encounter more of the first element, it can quite quickly get out of hand, hence, a 'runaway' chain reaction."

"And Fusion?"

"A lot safer in terms of if something goes awry, Fusion is the process of smashing two atoms together to make a heavier element, and releases more energy than the counterpart. Reactors began to pop up during the mid 21st Century, or about 400 years ago, and apart from a few select cases, have been our main power source for the past 400 years. It is quite hard to achieve for someone new to Nuclear science though, as to get a good reaction conditions need to be similar to a Star in either pressure or heat, and that means that if a fault occurs, most likely the reaction will stop, the surrounding area may be subject to some unpleasant conditions, but it won't be nearly as devastating as a Fission meltdown. And the result of which is that a glass of Water has the same output of a barrel of Dust, assuming that it is similar to Oil in terms of reactivity."

"I see." Ozpin responded, "One last thing on the topic, but you have been talking about these weapons as if they wield tremendous power, just how devastating are they?"

"Well, the first bomb was made in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, where the nations of the world fought due to a dictator known as Adolf Hitler was trying to wipe out the Jewish people, a religion that was one of the oldest surviving at the time, because he saw them as the cause of all the problems in the world.

Hitler allied with a nation known as Japan, and they would not surrender after Hitler had been stopped, so the United States of America created the Manhattan Project, where the first two Nuclear weapons were made; Little Boy and Fat Man. Imaginative names I know, but they were the second smallest in terms of destructive capability, aside from the self-detonation device within most experimental UNSC tech, and an experimental missile designed to be wielded by infantry rather than dropped from an Aircraft. The smaller of the two, Little Boy, wiped out a City in an instant, killing tens of thousands and destroying over two-thirds of the buildings there. An Average Havok Tactical Nuke of the UNSC is 2000 times more powerful than that."

The bombshell shook everyone who hadn't been told it, and even though Ruby had told her team, the raw figures still hit them.

"And you want to use several of these to make sure the Flood doesn't escape?" Ozpin asked in disbelief, not able to comprehend the magnitude of these weapons, one at each of the four Cities could very much wipe out Remnant for good.

It was Arbiter who replied this time, "As a good friend of mine once said to the Human Admiral who expressed the same concern, 'One single Flood spore can destroy a species.' When a small scale Infestation of one of my people's Cruisers landed on a Human world, Glassing half of the Continent it was on was the smallest measure to be taken, it may have even called for more, but I hope it did not."

"The Flood's strength is in how fast it grows," Cortana took up the conversation again, "In just a day on Halo, it went from feral to having a Proto-Gravemind, and it can start emploring strategy, if you don't notice it before then, you are as good as dead."

"I see, well hopefully we never have to face such a threat." Ozpin grimly responded, "Now, what was it that you wanted to see me for, aside from a way back to your people?"

"We were wondering if you had any familiarity with the Forerunners, As Ruby seemed to have left and returned by Forerunner means, Surely you must know something about them?"

"I'm afraid Grimm has left us unable to expand much further beyond these cities," Ozpin explained, "There are a few small villages and farms dotted across the planet, but as soon as populations start growing above a few hundred, unless there is substantial protection, most settlements fall to Grimm, with too many people having negative emotions attracting older, stronger members."

"Ruby gave me a basic introduction to Grimm, but not much," Cortana told the headmaster, "Do you mind telling me more?"

"Certainly, They have been around longer than recorded history for this planet, and come in all sorts of sizes and strengths, Beowolves to Ursa, Apathy to Wyverns, Boarbratusks to Goliaths, but they all share a few key traits; they do not have Aura, are covered in a black or sometimes red hide, with plates of bone protruding over key parts, sometimes forming spikes, and want the destruction of apparently any sentient life, as they ignore wildlife.

They disintegrate upon death, and as far as we know, are endless in number, if a Grimm survives for a long time, it grows smarter, whereas a young deathstalker is not much of a threat, and can be handled by anyone trained in basic combat, one that has survived for many years, hundreds in some cases, are much larger, tougher, and take a team of well-experienced huntsmen to take down."

"I see, Thank you anyways for your help. How long do you think would it take to make a space-worthy ship, if you were to be supplied with schematics for everything?"

"Vale is, unfortunately, not too well established in the manufacturing of warships, while I understand it is smaller than the presumed length of the vessel you came in on, the Kingdom of Atlas has an industry much more suited to the task, constructing battleships for their military.

I can introduce you to General Ironwood if you wish, he is the head of the military and coincidently headmaster of Atlas Academy, but I imagine the media is growing quite curious as to what has fallen from the sky."

"Well, it's probably about time we smile for the camera boys," Cortana quipped, "I hope it goes without saying, what we've said, about the Flood, Nuclear weapons, and the Forerunners will be kept confidential,"

"Don't worry Cortana, I have my fair share of secrets, it won't leave this room, you have my word." Ozpin replied curtly, "I trust it is ok for me to save the media some trouble and alert them that you're here?"

"Yes, better get this done and over with," she turned to Chief, "Shall we?" She asked, smirking at the Spartan, before her avatar disappeared and the chip was re-inserted to the Chief's helmet and both him and the Arbiter left the office to deal with the ensuing army of the press that Ozpin had just finished sending a message to. Goodwitch and Ozpin followed with a gesture from Ozpin to help handle the slew of questions that they would have about Beacon associating with these aliens too.

Upon the departure of the group, the air almost visibly tensed as Ruby knew Ozpin had something to say to her. Qrow sensed this between them, and put a hand on Tai's shoulder, "I imagine Oz wants to speak to Ruby and her team alone for a moment," he whispered, leading him outside the office to wait on the trio left inside.

"You did not tell me of these Weapons of Mass Destruction," Ozpin stated casting a glance at Ruby,

"Seeing as I thought I would not have contact with other UNSC personnel for the rest of my life, I thought it wouldn't matter," Ruby replied, the slight venom matching the mistrust in Ozpin's,

"As for their use against the Flood, I didn't know they were a potential threat at the time, Remnant is far from UNSC space, I have already checked the constellations, so the Covenant would have little reason to be here, and so we would not need for them there. If we did happen to encounter the Covenant, I would have informed everyone I could about the threat they posed, though with the official numbers of the Atlas Military, and licenced Huntsmen, even with Aura and Semblances, I doubt Remnant would last a week against a full-scale assault."

"... I see." Ozpin replied, before sighing, "Your team seem to be taking this information rather well,"

"I had divulged a bit more to them, seeing as they are my team, they deserved to know where their leader came from,"

"And I do not?"

"You stated yourself, you have secrets, I have mine,"

"Would it not be best to inform me of thing such as these, as someone who is…" He paused for a moment, "At a level where trust would come with the position?"

"I am not a puppet," Ruby retorted, "I won't blindly follow orders like a military tool anymore, I follow my own rules. It just so happens that those rules have the best for Human and Faunus-kind, and seem to coincide with yours, but should that change, I would gladly lead my team down what seems to be best, even if that means we will be enemies."

Ozpin saw that look in her eyes, one of fierce determination, one that Glynda's death stare couldn't hold a candle to, he had seen that only a handful of times before, and not always, was he on the right side of said glare, much like now.

Ruby's silver eyes pierced him, dragging out the moment to seem like an eternity, and had he been anyone else, he might have caved, but he had been through tougher tries will and strength over his life, he just hoped that Ruby would realise that he too, wants the best for Human and Faunus kind.

She continued to hold her gaze as Ozpin lowered his, not in defeat, but resignation, "Well, at least you let me know where your loyalties lie." He sighed, "And having a foundation on sharing that kind of information does make for a good team, I will give you that."

Both Yang and Blake let out a breath they hadn't realised they were holding, the pressure given off by their leader had felt enough to suffocate both of them, but it was easing off now, as Ozpin spoke again.

"I won't hold you from your break any further, so take the time to rest, and I shall see you at the beginning of the Winter semester."

He turned round and let the team leave his office.


	15. Chapter 14: A publicity stunt

**The plot is shaping up, as Ruby makes it clear who's side shes on, but whats a story without drama eh?**

 **there is a text log later in the chapter and since I'm publishing this on mobile, and there doesn't appear to be a right indent option, I'm underlining outgoing texts, which will probably be the way it happens from now on.**

 **as usual I don't own anything but the story.**

* * *

"Ok, what happened in there?" Qrow asked the trio as they exited, "We could feel the pressure out here."

"Ozpin asked me why I hadn't told him about the WMDs, and I gave my reasons," Ruby replied curtly, as they strode towards the elevator.

"Which were?"

"I didn't feel like it would become important, considering how destructive they were, this world wouldn't really have a use for them, and that I don't know much about the internal process. As well as the fact that I don't trust him."

"And why don't you trust him, I've been working with him for quite some time, and he's-"

"Because, Qrow, when you have worked in what I have for as long as I have, you learn things, and I can tell two things about Ozpin," Ruby told her uncle and Tai.

"1, he is much older than he seems, his eyes give that much away, and with this world throwing things out of the window with semblances, I am willing to say that my judgment isn't wrong there. And 2, he has secrets, lots of them, many I am willing to believe not even you, are privy to. So until he either explains himself, or gives me a very good reason why he hasn't, I have made it very clear that I am willing to cut ties to him."

Qrow and Tai looked at Ruby for a moment, seeing the glare, and immediately averting their eyes, as they rode the elevator down.

"Look, Ruby," Qrow said, staring at the floor, "You may be right on both those accounts, but I'm sure Ozpin has his reasons, he hasn't lead me astray so far, and I've been working for him longer than you've been alive, even with the space shenanigans." The elevator slowed down as he continued, "So trust me when I say, we're the good guys,"

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to be the judge of that." Ruby replied, "ONI, may have been 'The Good Guys,'" she said in air quotes, "But I sure as hell don't know any organization so twisted or corrupt. Even it what Arbiter says is true about the Covenant, about how controlling and manipulative the Prophets were, I can assure you ONI was 10 times worse, and I am not making my team have to witness that."

"I see…"

Blake, Yang, and Tai were sweating bullets right at this moment, with Ruby digging into them as she was, so nervously, Yang tried to change the subject.

"So, uh… What do you think is going to happen with Arbiter and the Chief?" She managed, with a weak smile.

"My honest opinion?" Ruby asked, "We're probably going to investigate the Forerunner facility that I arrived in, before heading to Atlas to negotiate with General Ironwood."

"We?" Tai asked, worried,

"Well considering I know the facility best, and will probably be asked to join as I presume Ozpin told Ironwood about me, I will need to be there for negotiations."

"Well, I'm coming with you," Yang told her sister, "You're not going off on any adventures on your own."

"I should go to keep them out of trouble then, shouldn't I?" Blake said to no-one in particular, though it was more of an excuse as she wanted to stay with her team.

"Thanks, guys," Ruby smiled, "You do realize this could be dangerous right?"

"Yup!" Was Yang's enthusiastic reply, "All the better!"

"Having your sister back has changed you a lot huh, Firework?" Qrow, hummed at her niece, and taking a swig from her flask.

"Yeah, having her back has taken a weight off my mind, I feel like I can finally do the stuff I wanted to, nothing's holding me back."

"Well, don't go too crazy," he warned, smiling.

Weiss' day had been going on as best as she could have hoped, her father teaching her business, and getting irritated at her 'lack of manners' ever since she started at Beacon, despite it being identical to when she left, Whitley was as condescending and annoying as ever, her mother was holed up in her room again, they had exchanged a brief conversation when she had arrived, but unfortunately, it was cut short when Weiss had been dragged away on 'more important matters.'

As always, the little solace she found in the Schnee Manor, at least when Winter wasn't visiting, was in Klein, who always did his best to keep her spirits up, no matter which personality was in control at the time, each of them, just having their own ways to go about it. Weiss was honestly worried that one of them would get him fired one day, with how wreckless Red could get with his jabs and anger sometimes.

So she sat in her room, thinking about her team and how much fun they were probably having right now, when she got a message. Checking and finding out it was from Blake, she was curious, and seeing the message said 'Check the news, but don't worry, much to Ruby's discomfort, apparently we're cool now.' only made her more curious.

So she opened the Vale news app on her scroll, seeing as it was probably there this was happening, and on the front page, there was an Elite standing next to a Spartan, as well as Professor Goodwitch, and Dr. Ooblek he newscasters taking photographs as the whole thing was being streamed. Sitting up straight, she unmuted the feed and began listening in.

 **"-Am Arbiter of Sanghelios, and this is The Master Chief of the UNSC, We come in peace." The deep voice of the Elite was heard through her tinny scroll speakers. "Our ship experienced an accident in slipspace, our method of travelling between the stars, and crash-landed in the Ocean. We managed to get in contact with Headmaster Ozpin, who has said that he will arrange a meeting with General Ironwood of Atlas, to see about building a replacement ship for us, so that we may return to our worlds."**

 **They were assaulted by questions, but one reporter managed to get the floor and asked,**

 **"How can you travel in space if Dust doesn't work in a vacuum?"**

 **"We did not have Dust on our worlds, nor Aura, semblances or Grimm," Arbiter explained, "And so we adapted different ways of producing energy, and propulsion. We are willing to trade this information if it will get us a ship back home."**

 **"What is space like?" Another reporter asked,**

 **"Aside from your species, are we alone?"**

 **"It can be quite trying sometimes, as a people who have not been able to break their atmosphere, even more so for you, but you are not alone, there are several species of sentient life known to us, and probably more we have not discovered yet. For we have not covered much of the galaxy, at least, compared to a civilization's ruins we have discovered from long ago."**

Having seen enough for now, Weiss texted back Blake,

 _What!!? Weren't we supposed to be at war with them?_

 _Well, apparently a lot has happened in the 4 months Ruby has been gone, and the Covenant basically fell apart after learning their whole religion was based off of a lie._ _Oh, and the Spartan, he's the other Hyper Lethal._

 _The what?_

 _The other Hyper Lethal Vector, remember? Ruby said there was only 1 other person to get the designation of Hyper Lethal, that's the guy._

 _Really_?

 _Yeah, Ruby seems to think that we're going to investigate the ruins that brought her here before coming up to Atlas for negotiations, so Ironwood can help produce a space-worthy vessel. The Chief has the AI Ruby was in charge of delivering, and she has schematics for a ship._

 _…_

 _This is a lot to take in._

 _Tell me about it, hopefully we can see you when we come up to Atlas, Yangs not letting Ruby go on her own, and I need to look after both of them, so I'm tagging along too._

 _But we have a lot to talk about._

They texted for a bit longer, explaining the crash, before her father burst into the room.

"Where have you _been_!?" He scolded, "I've been waiting for you in my office for the past 10 minutes, do you expect to inherit this company not knowing how to run it?"

"I was just about to start heading over," she lied, "I was just texting one of my teammates."

"..." He paused for a moment, "I hope it wasn't that Faunus you talked about. A Schnee shouldn't be seen with those hooligans, I should have a word with the headmast-"

"It was… in fact with 'the Faunus,'" Weiss cut him off, "And it was about what's on the news."

He narrowed his eyes at her cutting him off, as well as the tone, but seemed to let it slide when he asked, "What's on the news?"

"Apparently two aliens have crash-landed in the sea near Vale."

"Aliens?" He scoffed, "Preposterous, even if they did exist, how would they travel in space? Dust doesn't work in a vacuum."

Weiss just re-opened the news feed to show it was just ending,

 **"This has been Lisa Lavender reporting from Beacon Academy on the arrival of two Aliens after their ship crash-landed in the Vale Sea not 4 hours ago, back to the studio."**

With even the short clip, there was ample time to get a good view of Arbiter and the Chief, she had held it up to Jacque for him to see this before closing it again,

"Apparently, they will be coming up to Atlas to see General Ironwood within a few days to discuss building a new ship for them." Weiss told him, "And my team is supposedly coming with them."

"Your team?" He confirmed, "Why would they want your team?"

"Supposedly their escape pod landed just in front of the house they were staying at, so Ruby took it upon herself to bring them to Ozpin."

"Again with that leader of yours, you never shut up about her." Jacque lamented, "I swear, you are obsessed with her."

"She is an admirable leader," Weiss countered, "She pushes all of us, and is one of the best people I know."

"Better than your own family?" He asked, mockingly

' _By a mile_ ,' she thought.

"It would certainly be up for debate,"

"Unbelievable." He sighed into his hand, shaking his head and taking a moment before continuing. "Well, considering this… development, we shall postpone your lesson while I go talk to James about this… thing."

He left then without a word.

'Well that went well,' she thought, turning back to her Scroll.

As Blake continued to text Weiss about what had happened, albeit a brief summary, not trusting the CCT communication signals for being secure enough to transmit that sensitive info, especially to Atlas, the group met up with Arbiter and Chief, having come back from their news statement.

"That should keep them off of our backs for a while," Cortana addressed them when they had reached each other, "So, where would the cave you arrived from be Ruby?"

"That would be Forever fall Forest," the Spartan III replied, "It spans to the North of Vale, and the Cave is about 43 miles from Beacon, I could see about getting a Bullhead to drop us off there."

"It sure beats walking," Yang voiced, leaning against a wall, arms crossed.

"I'm surprised it's so close," Cortana brought to their attention, "43 miles from the main Huntsman Academy this side of the Continent, you'd think Ozpin would know more about it considering how close it is.

That being said, considering how you said the monitor here seems to think that humans shouldn't be on this planet 'yet' probably explains it, he sent in a couple huntsman teams, they kept disappearing, he chalks it up to the local Grimm and declares it a lost cause. Though that doesn't explain why we haven't come across more people with strange weaponry, Aura and Semblances within UNSC space, unless they're part of the insurrection, or were mauled by Grimm. I'll have to check the databases when we get back."

"That or it's just another one of his secrets…" Ruby stopped Cortana mid-tangent to bring focus back to what was happening now, "Either way, You know more about the Forerunners than anyone on this planet, so he probably doesn't know anything you don't already know."

"True, but you can never be too sure," Cortana countered. To which Ruby shrugged.

"I'll Hire a Bullhead to take us out there," Ruby told them, "While I don't trust him, Ozpin has given me an 'allowance' until I get my huntress licence and can earn my own money."

It didn't take long before RBY, the Chief and Arbiter, were wandering the Forest, having left Qrow and Tai at Beacon, with the reasoning that everyone was in good hands and any more could potentially get in the way.

Ruby was surveying the area, looking for familiar landmarks that denoted the entrance to the Forerunner Facility. It was well hidden, but after a little while of searching, the group uncovered a familiar shining silver metal door, geometrical and without any obvious way to open it, until it suddenly opened itself, and a monitor came through.

"Reclaimers? What are you doing here?" It asked surprised. "I was told by the Librarian that you would not be arriving here for another 200 years, as by her Geas." It looked to the side for a moment,

"Though Since you're here, you might be able to help me with the problem in the main chambers."


	16. Chapter 15: Pest control

**SO!**

 **I'm not dead Yay!**

 **You'd think this Quarantine would make me upload more considering the streak I had going, but a Writing block combined with all the school projects (online classes are quite annoying tbh), general laziness, and a certain Racoon, and you have my reason for keeping that cliffhanger for much longer than necessary. But hey, it's here now, and I managed to get my mom to finally catch up on Vol 7, so that's something I guess.**

 **Yadayada, I don't own anything but the story, Halo is owned by Microsoft and RWBY by RoosterTeeth, feel free to review, I always could use the feedback on if you have any problems with my style of writing. But hey, concidering weve hit, what is it now?** **Over 300 follows, and 200 favourites, I must be doing something right.**

 **Enjoy.**

* * *

"What problem?" Ruby asked the monitor, everyone was on edge.

"There's an infestation, and they are overrunning the main chamber, I try to get rid of them, but they always seem to have one that gets away and the whole process starts anew," it explained, "I can't use the full quarantine protocols as there are important ecological samples on this planet,"

"Wait." Cortana spoke up, "Are you talking about Flood?"

"A construct," strange, I did not detect you, "As to your question, that would be preposterous,"

"No flood samples were left with me, and the Halos were fired 100,000 years ago, or at least 100,000 years in realspace. So how would the Flood be here? Is there another outbreak?"

"No, there isn't." She reassured, "We just had a couple close calls."

"Wonderf-"

"What was that you said about 100,000 years in realspace?" Ruby picked up, causing the group to stare up at the monitor expectantly.

"It is probably best if I show you, Reclaimer,"

And suddenly, they were teleported away.

The process was a little disorientating, and had RBY, looking around, but Arbiter and Chief didn't make much movement so the others settled down pretty quickly,

"Woah…" Yang looked up and around in awe, they were in a large control room, much like that of Halo or The Ark,

"Welcome to the Silent Cartographer," the Monitor told them, as they approached the center platform. The biggest difference, was the large sphere or Remnant, along with its moon in orbit, it had a large bubble pulsing put from it.

As the Chief took out Cortana's chip and inserted it into the system, it surprised both of them that the Monitor did not protest.

"Ok, let's see here…" she muttered, and before long, the model zoomed out to encompass the sun, and the bubble pulse was still emanating far to the other side.

"This Shield Installation, uses Slipspace to slow down time inside of the bubble you see in order to keep certain sensitive materials stored here safe," the Monitor explained, "Unfortunately, this infestation has caused a malfunction in the drives that were in charge of this, and as a result, it can stop the time-slow altogether, or speed it up, at erratic rates."

Cortana continued to search the system as the others took in this information.

"So, while it has been over 100,000 years since the firing of the Halo Array, the time passed within this system has been closer to 150,000 years."

The display zoomed in on Remnant again, closing in on the Cartographer building, which is apparently deep within the crust.

"In fact, I believe we just entered another period of time acceleration, a side effect of this is that the system becomes inaccessible from the outside, unless you know the slipspace coordinates."

"So, is that why I'm older than I should be?"

"I'm sorry, Reclaimer?"

"You know that little girl you teleported off this planet 12 years ago? I'm her."

"I see…" it paused, "Well, yes it would be, we entered a time-slow phase shortly after you left, and it lasted quite a while, so that is most likely the case."

"So if it isn't the Flood, what's causing all of this?" Blake asked, arms crossed as she watched Cortana work the console, and looked up at the Monitor.

"That's what I'm trying to find…" Cortana muttered to the group, scanning her eyes over a model of the network of rooms within the installation. "Ah…"

"What is it?" The Chief asked her,

"Well, when I read the archives on High-Charity it talked about this, but I thought they got rid of them all… Well, depending on how you look at things it's good and bad. The infestation is a Lekgolo Colony."

At that Ruby groaned, "I stayed here to get away from this bullshit, and it still follows me."

"Well, these are the less intelligent kind," Cortana replied, "They like the compounds most Forerunner structures are made from, and so, they tend to eat most Forerunner technology, the Covenant almost wiped out all of them, before an Arbiter discovered a species that didn't eat them, and got them to join their ranks to eradicate the rest."

"Well, it appears the Prophets made yet another mistake." Arbiter growled, angry at the reminder that they disgraced the rank or Arbiter.

The display finally zoomed in on the rooms affected, the main chamber, the slipspace control room, and a small series of air ducts.

"How did you scan the air ducts?" The Monitor asked, "All the sensors went offline centuries ago."

"They were just disabled," Cortana replied, "You haven't been doing a good job of monitoring have you?"

"False!" It protested, "I have been diligent about the care of this installation since the firing of the rings! It has been kept immacul-" it cut itself off before letting itself droop, it made a sound akin to a sigh before continuing, "The initial outbreak happened about 30,000 years after the rings fired, when there was a surge of energy, it was a mass extinction on the surface, seemed to have somehow caused one of the Lekgolo to appear in one of the ducts, it multiplied quickly, and by the time I had noticed, it had already gotten into the slipspace room, and were beginning to get to the main chamber, every time I tried to get rid of them, they just kept coming back, to the point where they ended up destroying all the sentinels at my disposal,"

"So you just gave up in the hopes that a Reclaimer would come to fix it." Ruby surmised.

"Well, yes, but since the Librarian instructed that Humanity would not find this system for another 200 years in realspace, and all of the Reclaimers that came here were all extremely young, and hurt, I sent them to the closest system that Human contact had been established, in the hope that they would heal and come back when they were healed, and with reinforcements. Evidently, they did not."

"You haven't been paying attention to the surface have you?" Ruby asked the monitor.

"No, my primary directive is to take care of the technology stored here for the return of the Reclaimers in order to aid them in the reclamation of the Mantle, why would I be concerned about the surface when there have been matters to attend to here?"

Cortana zoomed out again, "Because it would seem that Humans have been setting up civilizations for the past 1,500 years, under your nose,"

The Monitor spluttered and looked at the data,

"Oh... Oh my."

"Indeed," Cortana replied.

"Right," Yang said, stretching, "Shall we take care of this infestation or what?"

"We may as well get started," Ruby said, "Take care of this and then see about seeing if we can recover anything."

"Don't we have to retrieve your armour Spartan?" Arbiter asked Ruby, as Blake and Yang were getting themselves ready,

"No, we don't," she replied, "Another bonus the Monitor of Reach gave me was my own pocket dimension."

She suited up, like Cortana, and the Arbiter looked in fascination.

"That's handy," Cortana replied, as a plasma rifle also appeared on her back,

"Yup, now, let's go get rid of these pests."

Following the Monitor into the main chamber, they found several pedestals with various Forerunner artifacts on them, it was like a museum of their technological prowess, but a lot of them had very clearly been damaged in some way, bits were barely holding together, and the pedestals they were suspended on via some form of gravitational manipulation, were reduced to spindly structures very clearly not their intended shape. Small fragments were on the floor, along with other shavings, some even still suspended in the place supposedly where they were supposed to be, but clearly originally a part of something no longer there.

"See what they have done to this place?" The monitor lamented, "This used to be a grand feat of Forerunner technology and architecture, now it's just a pile of rubble and ruin."

"I reckon there's still stuff that could be salvaged from this," Cortana interjected, "Our previous encounters with Forerunner tech didn't exactly allow us to study much," she told the orb, "We were forced to destroy much of what was there to prevent a much larger catastrophe."

The monitor paused for a moment, "I see… well, you would still have been able to glean much more from the intact artifacts than what those wretched creatures have left."

As he said that, it was almost on cue that a rumbling sound was heard. Behind a wall that a corridor was, a mass of something was bulging and convulsing, it moved towards them like a wave of flesh, as it drew closer, the Spartans at first, before eventually, everyone else, could make out the individual worms that made up its structure. As it drew closer, the pile seemed to rear up, rising to be about 30 or so meters in height, and about 5 meters wide, before seeming to bend down to look at the small party.

The worms that made it up were swimming underneath its skin in a way that caused Blake and Yang to reel in disgust, chirps and growls seemed to emanate from it, before it stopped changing its overall shape for a moment, looking down at the team of individuals, who had their weapons pointed at it, Chief and assault rifle, Arbiter, a Covenant Carbine, Ruby a plasma rifle, Yang and Blake with their personal weapons.

A stare-down seemed to happen then. It must have been only for a few seconds but they stretched impossibly long, and to each, it felt like minutes. Before it was broken by the monitor exclaiming towards the mass of lekgolo,

"You have caused enough damage to my facility, it is time for you to begone!" And blasting it with a laser from its optic.

The result of which was the mass reeling in pain and anger, as several worms fell, before hunter sized masses dropped from the form and began charging towards the team with roars of anger.

"Well, that was helpful!" Ruby yelled at the lightbulb, before beginning to fire upon the forms that were shambling towards them at quite fast speeds, their club-like appendages, flailing erratically about them, trying to hit the team somehow.

They all began to fire upon the Lekgolo forms and dodging their attacks, Blake and Yang were doing a lot more of the latter, not used to fighting such creatures. But despite that, they were felled rather quickly, either ripped to shreds by the projectile-based weapons used by Yang, Blake, and the Chief, or blasted apart by the monitor and Ruby's plasma, and the micro explosions caused by Arbiter's radioactive projectiles putting too much strain on individual worms.

"Well, one thing's for sure." Ruby said after a while, with more forms being produced by the mass, "They fall a lot easier without the Nanolaminate plates."

"Indeed Spartan," Arbiter agreed, though, he was not met with anything as a response.

The massive Lekgolo Colony seemed to realize that this was going no-where, so it let out another unearthly cacophonous howl, and the remaining forms turned to look at it, before reforming into its mass. The bulk then retreated back down the corridor it showed up in.

"This is what it always does." The Monitor told them, irritated at the colony, "After a small-time it retreats into the other chambers, dividing itself amongst them. Unfortunately, one is under vacuum, so as to not compromise other technologies, which despite this, are mostly still intact, so it remains that way."

"They can survive vacuum?" Blake asked, surprised at the revelation.

"They were originally found on an asteroid belt," Arbiter supplied, "I believe they had caused a small moon to disintegrate and form a belt around the planet with how much they ate, so yes, they survive in a Vacuum."

"Well, that means we're going to have to split up," Cortana said, "Chief and Ruby, into the Vacuum chamber, Arbiter, take Blake and Yang to deal with the rest."

"Oh no." Ruby but in, "I'm not leaving my team with him."

"Your suits are the only ones that are rated for vac-" the Monitor tried to reason, but was cut off.

"I don't care, you may trust him sir, but I can't just hand over my team to him knowing what his kind has done to ours."

"Do you not think I feel shame?!" The Arbiter suddenly yelled at them, "That I do not regret my actions dictated by the prophets?!" He glared at Ruby's visor, "Do you believe that I still take pride in all of the suffering that I caused, of the innocent's dead by my hands? I know that I am the direct cause of billions of lives taken because of a lie, with 7 worlds dead because of my orders." Yang and Blake gasped, with Ruby just silently fumed, her visor glaring back at the Sanghili.

"I tell you this Spartan, The Prophets did do one thing right. They were right to brand me with the mark of shame," he put a hand over the left side of his chest, "The only thing that stopped me from ending my life like so many of my brothers have, and undoubtedly will when the find out the news, is to hopefully reform my people, so that such acts will never be committed again. I do not try to act like those lives I ended were not wasted, and I give you my word as the Arbiter of the Sanghili, that your companions will not be harmed. If you find me wrong, I will give you no resistance in striking me down if it means you will leave your grudges behind.

I am not asking you to forgive, merely allow us to better ourselves from that tragedy."

There was a pregnant pause, Arbiter had at this point bowed down to the point where Ruby was a foot over him, with Yang and Blake internally screaming at the situation, and Chief, ready to intervene if Ruby, who looked like she could have wisps of smoke appearing any moment now, did anything drastic.

It seemed like minutes passed before Ruby spat out her answer.

"Fine…"


	17. Chapter 16: Extermination Squads

**Hoooo boy, this took some time to finally get done. What is it with the Quarantine making me lose all motivation to work through my writing blocks, eh?**

 **Writing blocks aside this Chapter took some time for numerous reasons; the weather is finally warming up which means the dog now demands we be outside all the time, helping my grandparents move, and beginning to move myself, again. Yes, we got a proper house and not a crappy rental with hardly any space for our stuff, so that's been happening.**

 **hope everyone's staying safe out ther** **e, what with everything happening at the moment, #blacklivesmatter, and happy pride month, usual disclamer, everything but the story here belongs to 343 and Roosterteeth, hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Anger still seemed to flow off of Ruby as the two Spartans entered the airlock, "Arbiter is a good person, Ruby," Cortana spoke over the comms, "He and the other Sangheili were raised with the teachings of the Covenant ingrained into them, just like your Spartan training, he does realize what he did was wrong."

There was no response from Ruby as the airlock finished depressurizing, and the door opened,

"Let's just get this over with," Chief told the both of them, as they moved forward.

Meanwhile Arbiter, Blake and Yang were walking down a corridor with the monitor humming along, excited that the infestation could finally be irradicated.

"Was that true?" Blake asked, the nervousness in her voice, as clear as day, "what you said back there?"

"I'm afraid so, Faunus," Arbiter replied, his voice filled with sorrow and regret, "I was taught the lies of the Covenant since I was a youngling, and strived to serve the Prophets the best I could," he looked to the floor, "It was all I ever knew, and so, I destroyed those planets without mercy. I understand if you fear me, I would too, if I had to be in your situation, but what is done, is done, and although I regret my actions, I must carry the weight of my sins."

"What do you plan to do?" Yang asked, hanging beside Blake to reassure themselves, "When you get back, I mean."

"A little history remains of the time of my people before the Prophets came to us," he explained, "The strongest faction of my people were known as the Swords of Sanghelios, founded by a brotherhood of Kaidon, leaders of state, to overthrow a tyrannical Arbiter of old. Perhaps I can bring back that name, to end the Covenant's grasp on my brothers and sisters."

"We'll it would be poetic." Yang tried, to ease the awkwardness that was beginning to fill the corridor.

"That it would, human, that it would be."

Blake looked around for a moment, hugging her arm, before speaking up again after a moment.

"Would you say someone who has killed could redeem themselves?" She asked, making the Elite stop and turn round to face her.

"Why would you ask that?"

"You know how we talked about the Faunus activists, the White Fang?" He nodded. "When it was less extreme, I was a member," Blake began, "I had a friend there, and I slowly watched him turn from a caring person into someone who seems to not care about the casualties he causes. I want to know if there's still hope he could become the person I used to know."

There was a brief period of silence before he answered, "I haven't experienced your exact situation myself before," he admitted, "But becoming Arbiter lead me to have to involve myself with the leader of the predominant Brute clan within the Covenant. He went by the name of Tartarus, and relished in serving the Prophets, to the point where they ordered him to execute me during the change of Guard. After surviving his execution attempt and learning the truth about the Great Journey, I tried to tell him the truth, in the hopes that we could put an end to it, but he would blindly follow them into the grave, and did; being the one who attempted to fire the second ring we came across. We had to kill him to allow us to stop the countdown."

Blake looked down at that, mumbling something that sounded like a dejected, "oh."

"I am not saying it is not worth trying to save your friend," Arbiter quickly assured, "I am merely warning you that he may not be the person you knew anymore, and that he could be beyond saving. Should that be the case, and you cannot get him to realize what he has become, you should be prepared for the consequences."

"I see…" she replied, "Thank you." She knew that she would have to think about it more, but now wouldn't be the time, as she heard the sounds of the Lekgolo up ahead. "Get ready, I can hear them up ahead."

As Ruby and Chief advanced, they could hear the sounds of the mass of worms eating. They continued in silence as they closed in on the hivemind, weapons raised.

The mass' chirps and growls could be heard through their boots as the worms swarmed over the Forerunner tech, like a sea of oversized ants from a cheesy horror film. It seemed to have not spotted the two Spartans yet, so they drew closer, getting into favourable positions to do decent damage.

Retrieving a Plasma grenade from her storage, Ruby took a look at Chief, who nodded, before throwing it into the mass and preparing to fire.

The grenade exploded as the sea of Lekgolo roared in animalistic pain, Plasma burning its way through a small hole, as both super soldiers began to fire upon it before it had a chance to assess the situation. They targeted specific patches with precision, forcing it to try and shrink itself to minimize casualties within the colony, but it was futile as the rain of plasma and bullets, coming in controlled bursts as to not overheat, and conserve ammo, tore through the worms.

It howled in agony, trying to dodge the assault from both Spartans, but only marginally succeeding.

Ruby decided to use another grenade, but as she retrieved it, the colony shifted. They both stared at it, with Spartan time slowing down their perception enough to analyze it, before it shot towards Ruby, as a pillar of worms, all chirping and snarling, mandibles snapping at her as they came towards her.

She barely had enough time to dodge the swarm as it blew past her, smashing into a wall and splashing out before gathering for another attack. She threw the grenade before they got the chance, and watched as they swarmed the ball of plasma just before they were blown apart again.

"They must be after the energy surge you get from pulling stuff out of your pocket dimension," Cortana explained as Ruby nodded, using her plasma rifle to melt the small groups trying to reform, it took some time, but with the combined efforts of both Spartans, they got the last of them.

"Scanning…" Cortana said as both Spartans checked the area, keeping their guard up, "That's the last of them, we can rejoin the others." At that, Ruby made her way towards the airlock, moving at an uncomfortably quick pace, for walking, even for a Spartan, her distrust for the Sangheili, while clear she was trying to make a case in her head, it was also clear to the Spartan-II and his AI companion, that she wanted to get there as soon as possible.

The trio fighting the other part, wasn't having nearly as much luck, with a greater number having stuck to this colony, Hunter forms were being dropped on them as they tried to make up for the lack of effectiveness their weapons were providing them, and because of such, we're running low on Ammo. Arbiter had already switched to his Energy Sword, as to conserve combine ammo, while Yang and Blake, having fallen behind, were on the last few clips for their secondaries, and were going to be forced to change to their old weapons if this kept up. The Monitor, who had yet to introduce itself, was chipping in with its sentinal beam, every now and again, but wasn't making much progress, by itself.

"Running low here!" Yang called out as she loaded her final magazine into the assault Rifle, shooting controlled burst, as Ruby had taught her, towards the worms trying to make their way to her. They were backing her hand her teammate into the hallway they had come from. When the colony began to make a slow humming noise, Arbiter's eyes widened as he inhaled slightly, before running towards the huntresses, "Get down!" He yelled at them, diving in front of Yang as the colony shot out to them, the spear-like the thrust of the colony, knocking his shields and sending him flying into the far wall.

The Spartans had turned the corner, sprinting towards their chamber, just in time to see this happening, Cheif rushed to The Arbiter's side, while Ruby tossed the other two more rounds of ammo, and firing on the mass to repel it from Arbiter's position, the plasma ripping through the wall of worms, causing them to shriek in pain, and retreat back into a singular mass.

It took a long time, but with the now combined help of the two Spartans, they managed to turn the tide and beat back the Lekgolo hoard, taking out any parts that tried to split off and flee the carnage. Eventually, the group effort lead to the last of the worms being crushed under the foot of the Arbiter, looking down at it as it let out a last painful trill and writhed around once more before falling limp.

With the danger now gone, they could see that the lance attack had done more damage than they realized, putting a significant dent into his Cuirass, but the proud Sangheili didn't seem to let such a mark get to him, whether it absorbed the blow, or he was injured it was impossible to tell, with his masked calmness over the situation.

"You didn't have to take that for me," Yang told him, there was no doubt as to what she was referring to, "My Aura would have been able to take it."

"I suppose it might have," he replied, looking at the young huntress, "In the heat of the battle, I merely reacted in instinct, your Aura was a forgotten factor."

"Well," Ruby spoke up, "You have my thanks," she nodded to him, surprising the others, though Chief remained stoic, his visor not yielding his emotions. The Elite nodded in acceptance, as they began to make their way back to the Cartographer.

"Not one of those infernal things left on the sensors!" The Monitor exclaimed gleefully, "You don't know how much of a bother they have been Reclaimers, to have them finally dealt with is simply euphoric!"

It was whizzing around the Cartographer's chamber, flying around without a care in the world, while Cortana was taking a proper inventory on the artifacts that had survived. Which was not much, given 30,000 years of free reign throughout the facility, even with the exterminations, the Lekgolo colony had devoured just about everything useful, what was left was trivial things that they had no use for, toys, presumably, little demonstrations of tech that they had already seen, and they're the one the most intact, with chunks missing enough to make them more or less useless for their original purpose. Even the stuff within the airlock couldn't be used as intended, but the Monitor insisted that there was enough in order to keep the vacuum state present.

"Hang on…" Cortana muttered, "There is one thing."

"What is it?" Chief asked his AI, looking at the screen she had on display, despite it being all in Forerunner glyphs.

"It's not in perfect condition, but there's another slipspace drive, apart from the one causing all of the time jumps." She explained, pulling up a large pod, looking suspiciously like a cryo-pod, "It's acting as a form of time-lock, place something in that pod, and you can make whatever's in there have its relative time slow down to... well functionally nothing, 1 second could take billions of years, or the reverse, billions of years span in the space of 1 second outside the pod."

"Ah yes," the Monitor began, "The Forerunners would use them as a sort of Cryptum, for the lesser rates, or the execution of condemned criminals, make them live out their life sentence in the span of a few seconds, until nothing but dust remained." Yang shivered at the thought,

"Yes that makes sense," Cortana replied, "Do you think it would be possible to reconfigure it for space travel?"

The Monitor spluttered again, taking a moment to recompose itself.

"Possibly, but why would you need that?"

"We still need a way home," Cortana replied, "Ozpin seems confident that this, 'General Ironwood' in Atlas will be able to build us a new ship, but without a Slipspace drive, we'd be dead in the water."

"So why not use one from a race who has enough mastery to transport planet-sized rings, and have localized pocket dimensions with slipspace," Ruby surmised,

"Exactly." Cortana smiled at the Spartan III, "So could you?"

"I can see what I can do." It flew off to a maintenance shaft to head towards the pod.


End file.
